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SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 


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SHORT-BALLOT 
PRINCIPLES 

BY 
RICHARD  S.  CHILDS 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

(Zbe  fttocrjsi&e  prcs?  Cambridge 
1911 


COPYRIGHT,    IpII,    BY   RICHARD   S.    CHILDS 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  September,  iqn 


TO 
THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE 

WITH  THE  ASSURANCE  THAT  THEY  ARE 
NOT  TO  BLAME  FOR  THEIR  MISGOVERNMENT 

THIS  VOLUME 
IS  LOYALLY  DEDICATED 


PREFACE 

WHILE  I  entitle  this  book  "Short-Ballot 
Principles"  I  am  aware  that  it  contains 
a  number  of  things  which  are  only  remotely  con- 
nected with  the  Short-Ballot  movement.  Short- 
Ballot  advocates  are  justified  in  asking:  "'The 
Wieldy District'  idea,  the  'Leadership  Parties/ 
and  'Nomination  by  Forfeit'  —  are  these  Short- 
Ballot  principles  ?  " 

No.  The  title  is  meant  to  cover  only  those 
chapters  which  deal  with  the  Short-Ballot 
principle  as  defined  by  The  Short-Ballot  Or- 
ganization; which  is:  — 

First :  That  only  those  offices  should  be 
elective  which  are  important  enough  to  attract 
(and  deserve)  public  examination;  and, 

Second  :  That  very  few  offices  should  be 
filled  by  election  at  one  time,  so  as  to  permit 
adequate  and  unconfused  public  examination 
of  the  candidates. 

But  the  Short  Ballot,  far  reaching  and  im- 
portant as  it  is,  will  not  completely  answer 
present  difficulties  of  self-government.  "New 
York  City  practically  has  the  Short  Ballot," 


viii  PREFACE 

says  a  doubter;  and  I  must  explain  that  the 
mere  bigness  of  the  electoral  district  creates  a 
special  problem  which  the  Short  Ballot  does 
not  answer,  and  that  big  cities  must  have  the 
right  kind  of  Short  Ballot,  else  the  "machine" 
will  stay  and  prosper.  So  likewise  to  answer 
other  critics  I  must  talk  of  parties  and  of  nomi- 
nation procedure  and  get  those  things  into  the 
same  perspective  as  the  rest  of  the  book.  But 
these  postscripts  are  only  my  personal  answers, 
and  any  Short-Ballot  advocate  is  free  to  differ 
and  to  offer  other  reasoning  of  his  own  without 
impairing  his  orthodoxy! 

RICHARD  S.  CHILDS. 

New  York,  February,  1911. 


CONTENTS 

I.  OUR   POLITICAL    SUPERSTITIONS   AND    THE 

SCIENTIFIC  SPIRIT      ........  1 

EC.  DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT  HAS  LIMITATIONS  10 

m.  THE  SHORT  BALLOT       ........  21 

IV.  THE  OFFICE  MUST  BE  IMPORTANT  ....  31 

V.  THE  NATURE  OF  POPULAR  INTEREST  ...  43 

VI.  THE  LIMIT  OF  DISTRICT-SIZE     .....  51 

VII.  FITS  AND  MISFITS     .........  59 

.  RAMSHACKLE  GOVERNMENT    ......  119 


IX.  PARTIES  AND  WHY  THEY  CANNOT  BE  RESPON- 

SIBLE   ..............  130 

X.  "LEADERSHIP  PARTIES"     .......  144 

XI.  NOMINATION  PROCEDURE   .......  154 

XII.  CONCLUSION      ...........  162 

L'ENVOI  .  170 


SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

CHAPTER  I 

OUR   POLITICAL   SUPERSTITIONS   AND   THE 
SCIENTIFIC   SPIRIT 

~jiy|~Y  purpose  is  to  present  in  these  pages  a 
JJjL  view  of  democratic  government  from  a 
distance  not  usually  taken  by  American  citi- 
zens, —  a  distance  so  remote  from  the  whole 
tangle  of  reasoning  as  to  cast  into  clearer  per- 
spective the  meaning  and  relation  of  the  vari- 
ous parts. 

In  considering  the  problems  which  we  have 
met  in  the  course  of  our  adventure  in  demo- 
cracy, we  Americans  have  very  rarely  stopped 
to  take  a  look  at  the  whole  proposition  of  popu- 
lar government.  We  have  wrestled  with  func- 
tions instead  of  causes.  As  a  nation  we  have 
never  been  more  than  merely  superficial  in  our 
theories  of  political  science. 

In  fact,  most  Americans  seem  unaware  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  political  science.  Any 


2          SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

sensible  lawyer  is  considered  competent  to 
draft  a  plan  of  government  for  a  city.  Honesty 
qualifies  a  business  man  to  go  to  a  state  consti- 
tutional convention.  In  talking  to  miscellane- 
ous audiences  on  subjects  of  this  nature,  I  have 
been  repeatedly  secretly  amused  at  the  easy 
nonchalance  with  which  men  who  had  never 
before  given  a  thought  to  the  problems  of 
governmental  organization  would  wave  aside 
statements  quoted  from  such  men  as  ex-Presi- 
dents Eliot  of  Harvard  and  Woodrow  Wilson  of 
Princeton,  as  if  there  could  not  possibly  be  any 
elements  in  democratic  problems  that  were  not 
visible  to  any  amateur  at  a  glance.  The  only 
parallel  I  know  of  is  the  profession  of  adver- 
tising. Almost  any  average  man  thinks  him- 
self competent  to  write  good  advertisements 
without  any  study  or  experience,  and  every 
advertising  agent  earns  his  commissions  ten 
times  over  in  squelching  the  foolish  proposals 
of  his  clients. 

And  so  when  a  council  proves  corrupt,  our 
city  charter  is  merely  amended  to  transfer  the 
control  of  contracts  to  a  new  board  of  public 
works.  If  the  state  surveyor  is  untrustworthy, 
we  create  a  new  official  to  build  the  new  canal. 
If  the  county  clerk  makes  his  office  a  feeding 


OUR  POLITICAL  SUPERSTITIONS      3 

trough  of  patronage,  we  create  a  civil-service 
board  to  supply  him  with  an  eligible  list.  New 
York  takes  the  control  of  franchises  away  from 
the  aldermen  as  a  measure  of  reform  while 
Chicago  (as  a  measure  of  reform)  is  adding  to 
the  powers  of  its  aldermen  —  and  in  both  cases 
reform  is  for  the  moment  achieved,  since  cor- 
ruption is  a  plant  that  often  takes  more  than 
a  moment  to  grow  in  new  environments.  So  we 
go  on,  doctoring  symptoms  instead  of  looking 
for  the  disease! 

In  fact,  in  any  tentative  exploration  in  the 
direction  of  fundamentals  we  have  been 
stopped  time  and  again  by  certain  widespread 
political  superstitions  among  our  people  —  su- 
perstitions that  usually  have  as  their  nucleus 
an  ancient  catch-phrase.  Propose  that  a  mayor 
be  allowed  a  seat  and  vote  in  the  council,  and 
the  proposal  will  be  heard  on  its  merits  until 
some  one  says:  "That  violates  the  principle  of 
the  'separation  of  powers'  There  you  have 
legislative  and  executive  functions  united"; 
and  with  the  advent  of  the  catch-phrase,  it  is 
deemed  the  duty  of  the  proposer  to  bow  in 
awed  silence,  as  if  the  argument  were  ended. 
Propose  to  make  the  state  engineer  appointive, 
on  the  ground  that  the  plan  of  having  him  elec- 


4          SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

live  has  worked  badly,  and  the  word  "undemo- 
cratic" falls  like  a  gavel  to  end  the  discussion. 
Plead  that  a  referendum  on  a  technical  subject 
is  little  better  than  leaving  the  decision  to 
chance,  and  the  query,  "Don't  you  trust  the 
people?"  is  supposed  to  retire  you  in  confusion. 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  was  right  when  he  said 
"Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  princi- 
pally by  catch-phrases." 

That  in  our  political  reasoning  we  should 
be  the  slaves  of  these  glib  "  bromidioms "  is 
probably  because  the  subject  is  the  'common 
property  of  the  millions.  Any  idea  that  is  to  be 
widely  spread  and  remembered  must  be  con- 
densed to  a  catch-phrase  first,  even  if  such  re- 
duction means  lopping  off  many  of  its  vital 
ramifications  and  making  it  false  in  many  of 
its  natural  applications.  A  dozen  well-chosen 
words  can  travel  from  mouth  to  mouth  great 
distances  and  keep  their  alignment  unbroken; 
but  make  the  phrase  longer  and  it  falls  apart 
and  stops,  —  or  only  a  fragment  of  it  travels 
on. 

The  power  of  these  catch-phrases  to  sway 
men's  minds,  regardless  of  reasoning,  is  a  fas- 
cinating thing  to  see.  The  Des  Moines  plan  of 
city  government  at  this  writing  is  winning  favor 


with  thousands  because  they  say  it  is  "a  busi- 
ness form  of  organization,"  —  just  "like  a 
corporation  with  its  board  of  directors,"  — 
although  in  fact  it  is  really  like  a  board  of  de- 
partment superintendents  elected  by  the  stock- 
holders, —  a  form  of  organization  unknown  in 
business  and  never  likely  to  find  favor  in  busi- 
ness practice.  If  it  were  really  like  a  board  of 
directors,  the  "commission"  would  appoint  a 
manager  who  in  turn  would  hire  the  departmen- 
tal heads,  reporting  regularly  to  the  commission 
and  submitting  to  it  only  broad  matters  of 
policy.  Yet  the  catch-phrase  has  converted 
whole  cities,  while  the  fundamental  but  less 
catchy  reasons  for  the  comparative  success  of 
the  plan  have  rarely  been  mentioned ! 

In  this  volume  I  propose  to  remain  at  a  point 
of  view  so  distant  that  the  whole  network  of 
catch-phrases  will  be  lost  sight  of,  and  we  shall 
see  democracy  as  a  whole,  never  getting  close 
enough  to  see  the  details.  If  we  can  only  keep 
for  a  while  at  such  a  distance  that  nothing  but 
the  fundamental  features  will  be  visible!  It  will 
be  hard,  but  perhaps  it  will  help  if  I  take  the 
liberty  of  warning  you  against  the  greatest 
catch-phrase  of  all  —  namely  "the  people," 
pronounced  "pee-pul"!  Or,  worse  yet,  "the 


6  SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

plain  people,"  who,  I  believe,  have  certain 
supernatural  virtues  not  possessed  by  "the 
people."  It  is  lese-majeste  to  allege  that  there 
are  any  limitations  to  the  people  in  either 
morals  or  learning.  We  are  only  beginning  to 
emerge  from  the  period  when  thought  on  the 
question  of  popular  government  was  simply 
used  to  supply  the  savor,  and  not  the  sub- 
stance, for  oratory.  "Rounded  periods"  are 
out  of  fashion  on  every  other  subject,  but  rhe- 
torical vaporings  still  ^  enshroud  "this  great 
people";  and  if  you  should  have  the  temerity 
to  opine  that  most  of  the  people  vote  for  a  state 
treasurer  blindly  without  adequate  knowledge 
of  his  qualifications,  a  hundred  editors  (after 
having  looked  up  the  name  of  the  state  treas- 
urer themselves  to  be  sure  of  it)  will  explode 
in  paragraphs  of  fury,  inveighing  against  your 
"aristocratic  sneers."  In  the  same  editorials, 
after  exalting  the  intelligence  and  virtue  of  the 
people,  I  have  seen  them  proceed  to  deplore 
the  "wanton  indifference  of  the  age"  and  "the 
prevailing  absence  of  civic  energy  " ! 

And  there  we  have  another  familiar  set  of 
catch- words.  "Apathy"  is  a  catch-phrase,  and 
I  shall  show  you  later  that  the  notion  that  "our 
people  are  apathetic  toward  their  political  in- 


OUR  POLITICAL  SUPERSTITIONS      7 

terests  and  duties"  is  one  of  our  political  super- 
stitions. I  shall  be  a  long  way  on  with  you, 
Mr.  Citizen,  if  I  can  persuade  you — 

First,  that  the  people  are  men  and  women 

—  not  demigods. 

Second,  that  the  people  are  men  and  women 

—  not  moral  delinquents. 

If  we  thus  concede  to  the  people  the  faults 
and  merits  possessed  by  men  and  women,  we 
can  proceed  calmly  to  consider  them  as  the 
great  underlying  force  of  democratic  govern- 
ment, with  certain  well-known  and,  so  far  as  we 
are  concerned,  unalterable  characteristics  to 
be  reckoned  with  as  we  erect  the  political 
superstructure. 

Think  of  the  people  as  you  would  of  water 
when  building  a  water-mill!  You  would  waste 
no  time  in  deploring  its  lazy  tendency  to  slip 
downward  through  every  crevice  in  your  dam 

—  you  would  admit  the  fact  and  build  a  tight 
dam.   You  would  not  plan  to  have  the  water 
flow  uphill,  knowing  that  you  would  inevitably 
be  disappointed.   If  your  mill  finally  failed  to 
work,  you  would  still  not  blame  the  water  but 
only  the  mill,  and  would  strive  to  adapt  its 
gearing  to  the  force  of  the  stream.    Yet  you 
would  have  just  as  much  right  to  sit  by  the 


8          SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

motionless  mill  and  curse  the  characteristics  of 
water  (which  consistently  fails  to  fulfill  your 
man-made  requirements)  as  has  the  Charter- 
Revision  Committee  to  devise  a  city  charter 
that  imposes  requirements  on  the  people  which 
ample  experience  demonstrates  that  the  people 
will  not  fulfill,  and  to  curse  the  people  for  fail- 
ure to  live  up  to  these  arbitrary  "duties." 

So  in  this  volume  I  shall  try  to  get  you  to 
consider  "the  people"  in  the  same  scientific 
spirit  in  which  you  would  consider  the  water, 
ascribing  to  them  no  unnatural  virtues,  no 
powers  that  have  not  been  revealed  in  practice, 
no  halo,  no  golden  glory;  to  consider  them  as 
a  phenomenon  of  nature  which  in  a  given  set  of 
circumstances  will  do  certain  things  and  will 
not  do  certain  other  things. 

In  the  past  we  have  approached  the  people 
as  a  pagan  approached  the  waterfall  —  to  wor- 
ship and  peer  around  for  nymphs.  We  must  to- 
day approach  the  people  as  the  mill-builder 
approaches  the  waterfall,  open-eyed,  unafraid, 
expecting  no  miracle,  measuring  its  capacity, 
making  allowance  for  its  variations,  and  irrev- 
erently gauging  its  limitations  in  order  that  our 
mill  shall  not  exceed  them.  We  shall  learn 
perhaps  that  the  "crystal  drops"  contain  a  cer- 


OUR  POLITICAL  SUPERSTITIONS      9 

tain  percentage  of  sediment,  that  though  the 
stream  "goes  on  forever"  it  goes  rather  slowly 
in  a  dry  summer,  and  that  the  "resistless  force 
which  cuts  the  stern  granite  and  yet  makes  way 
for  a  baby's  hand"  amounts  to  just  a  certain 
horse-power  and  can  be  trusted  to  saw  just  so 
many  feet  of  lumber  per  day. 

In  considering  the  people  in  this  scientific, 
unpoetic  spirit  we  shall  not,  I  promise  you,  be- 
come cynics.  The  engineer  who  reduces  the 
waterfall  to  a  sheet  of  mathematics  has  just  as 
real  a  respect  for  it  as  the  sentimentalist  who 
writes  a  rhapsody  to  it.  I  hope  to  land  you 
safely  in  the  last  chapter  possessed  of  a  dis- 
criminating admiration  for  our  American  people 
in  politics,  freed  from  vague  mental  reserva- 
tions and  fears,  with  an  unclouded  optimism, 
and  a  faith  that  involves  no  mysticism,  but  is 
comfortably  established  on  a  foundation  of 
frank  reasoning. 


CHAPTER  H 

DEMOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT   HAS   LIMITATIONS 

Now  I  will  suppose  that  the  previous  chap- 
ter has  gotten  us  into  the  coldly  scientific 
and  unsentimental  state  of  mind  where  we 
can  safely  trust  ourselves  to  measure  and  cal- 
culate the  various  elements  of  popular  govern- 
ment without  danger  of  either  magnifying  or 
ignoring  any  of  the  features  we  see. 

The  problem  before  us  is: — 

Given  the  American  people, 

How  to  organize  among  them  a  government 
which  in  all  normal  times  will  be  impelled 
promptly  and  intelligently  to  learn  their  desire 
and  perform  it. 

This  does  not  mean  merely  that  the  govern- 
ment will  obey  on  those  occasions  when  the 
people  in  a  paroxysm  proclaim  from  press, 
pulpit,  and  mass  meeting  that  a  certain  thing 
must  be  done  (though  even  that  would  be  sub- 
stantial gain  in  some  American  communities). 
It  means  a  government  which  is  so  sensitive  to 
the  currents  of  public  opinion  that  it  will  even 
anticipate  the  popular  wish. 


DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT        11 

There  is  nothing  fanciful  in  such  an  ideal. 
Commerce  is  no  less  sensitive  than  that.  Every 
taste  of  the  public  in  food,  art,  and  comfort  is 
catered  to  without  any  conscious  public  in- 
quiry for  such  satisfaction.  It  is  profitable  to 
our  purveyors  to  please  us  with  new  dainties 
for  the  table,  comfortable  shoes,  pretty  homes, 
and  records  of  Caruso's  voice.  Rarely  do  we  as 
a  people  need  to  express  a  want  for  such  things 
—  the  knowledge  that  we  shall  like  them  is 
enough  to  stimulate  their  production.  So  in 
our  ideal  democracy  we  shall  want  something 
better  than  legislatures  that  say,  "Yes,  that's 
a  good  idea,  but  there 's  no  public  demand  for 
it,"  as  if  the  fact  that  they  had  not  yet  been 
kicked-  were  satisfactory  excuse  for  inaction! 
Rather  we  want  legislatures  that  will  even  sur- 
prise us  with  good  things  that  most  of  us  had 
not  yet  had  time  to  hear  agitated,  —  knowing 
us  and  knowing  what  we  like,  each  public  serv- 
ant racing  to  be  the  most  popular  and  to  win 
our  bestowal  of  honor  and  office  by  inventing 
new  political  delights! 

Democratic  government  is  government  con- 
trolled by  the  people,  and  has  three  important 
variations  of  form. 

First:  the  town  meeting  where  the  people 


\ 
12         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

themselves  gather  in  conference  and,  after  de- 
bate, decide  for  themselves  upon  their  laws  and 
communal  activities.  The  average  man  will 
readily  agree  that  this  form  of  democratic  gov- 
ernment is  only  suitable  in  a  limited  field  of 
application  and  is  unpractical  in  large  cities,  or 
sparsely  settled  communities  of  large  area,  or 
communities  where  the  governmental  activities 
are  complex  and  technical  in  their  nature. 

Second:  the  referendum,  wherein  laws  are  de- 
vised by  some  committee,  official  or  otherwise, 
and  submitted  for  approval  to  popular  vote. 
The  average  man  will  readily  agree  that  this 
form  of  democratic  government  also  has  its 
limits  of  practicability  and  that,  for  instance,  to 
have  all  the  laws  of  a  state  made  in  that  fashion 
would  be  quite  out  of  the  question. 

Yet  what  would  happen  if  some  limitations 
of  these  forms  of  democratic  government  were 
ignored?  Suppose  Chicago  were  forced  by  the 
terms  of  an  ancient  village  charter  to  submit 
its  vast  governmental  activities  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  an  annual  public  meeting  of  all  the 
citizens !  Of  course  all  the  citizens  could  not  get 
into  a  single  hall  nor  within  sound  of  a  single 
voice,  and  the  few  thousand  who  could  do  so  by 
trick  or  violence  could  gain  control  and  keep  it 


DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT         13 

year  after  year.  That  would  be  oligarchy,  —  the 
rule  of  the  few,  —  although  any  politician  armed 
with  a  few  carefully  selected  catch-phrases  could 
indignantly  argue  that  it  was  exactly  the  same 
form  of  government  which,  when  used  in  New 
England  towns,  had  proven  a  triumph  of  pure 
democracy !  Inasmuch  as  it  looked  as  if  it  ought 
to  be  a  democracy,  thousands  of  citizens 
would  actually  believe  that  it  must  be  one  and 
that  the  true  remedy  for  the  resultant  ills  of  the 
system  lay  in  "more  civic  virtue,"  "a  more 
militant  good  citizenship,"  and  "the  education 
of  the  people  "  so  that  they  would  n't  shout  and 
yell  so  at  the  meeting.  If  you  asserted  that  the 
overstepping  of  the  limit  of  practicability  in 
the  size  of  the  electorate  had  been  in  itself  suf- 
ficient to  alter  the  whole  principle  of  the  plan, 
making  it  normally  and  naturally  productive  of 
violent  oligarchy  instead  of  democracy,  you 
would  be  called  an  "academic  aristocrat," 
"distrustful  of  the  pee-pul,"  or  a  "dilettante 
who  disliked  to  jostle  in  the  rough  mob !  " 

Does  the  picture  of  such  stupid  opposition 
seem  overdrawn?  Wait.  It  is  actually  the  pre- 
sent condition  of  American  political  thought, 
except  that  I  have  imagined  it  applied  to  the 
town-meeting  form,  instead  of  to  the  third  form 


14         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

of  democratic  government,  namely  government 
Jyy  elected  officers. 

Government  by  elected  officers,  which  of 
course  is  by  far  the  most  important  of  the  three 
typical  mechanisms  for  ascertaining  and  exe- 
cuting popular  will,  is  supposed  to  work  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

It  is  known  that  a  certain  office  in  the  govern- 
ment will  on  a  certain  day  be  filled  by  popular 
vote.  The  office  is  made  attractive  by  salary 
and  honor.  Several  eligible  men  covet  the  posi- 
tion and  accordingly  go  among  the  voters  seek- 
ing favor.  If  any  considerable  section  of  the 
voters  want  a  certain  policy  adopted  in  that 
office,  either  the  need  of  securing  then*  support 
will  lead  candidates  to  announce  concurrence 
in  that  desire,  or  the  opportunity  to  obtain 
office  by  means  of  their  support  will  produce  new 
candidates  who  do  concur  in  it.  Thus,  any  im- 
portant demand  among  the  people  is  automat- 
ically reflected  in  the  list  of  candidates  whose 
names  appear  on  the  ballot  on  election  day. 
Then  the  voters  go  to  the  polls,  and  knowing 
which  candidate  best  represents  their  individ- 
ual desires,  they  mark  his  name  on  the  ballot. 
The  officer  thus  elected  is  the  one  who  has  suc- 
cessfully catered  to  the  wishes  of  the  greatest 


DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT        15 

number.  The  necessity  that  every  elected  officer 
shall  thus  find  favor  with  the  people,  gives  the 
people  ultimate  control. 

That  is  the  theory.  We  are  so  far  from  it  in 
practice  that  it  has  a  strange  look.  It  is  a  sound 
workable  theory  nevertheless.  But  it  has  its 
limitations,  just  as  town-meeting  democracy 
has.  And  if  these  limitations  are  overstepped, 
oligarchy  automatically  results. 

Some  of  these  limitations  are  merely  mechan- 
ical; others  are  rooted  in  human  nature  itself. 

The  mechanical  limitations  do  not  commonly 
bother  us  much,  for  they  are  easy  to  see  and 
hence  are  unlikely  to  be  overstepped.  For  in- 
stance, the  polling-place  must  be  orderly.  If  it 
be  unguarded  by  the  police,  the  opportunity 
to  capture  an  election  by  violence  will  be  left 
open  to  any  group  of  ruffians,  and  it  is  a 
reasonable  certainty  that  some  group  of  ruf- 
fians will  sooner  or  later  perceive  and  grasp 
the  opportunity.  "Bleeding  Kansas"  before 
the  Civil  War  was  the  unhappy  scene  of  just 
such  occurrences.  The  rule  of  the  few  (oli- 
garchy), instead  of  democracy,  the  rule  of  the 
many,  is  thus  the  logical,  normal,  inevitable 
result  of  a  failure  to  observe  this  limitation  of 
democracy  by  election. 


16         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

The  most  familiar  illustration  of  overstepped 
mechanical  limitations  is  in  the  form  of  the 
ballot  and  the  method  of  marking  it.  The  rules 
governing  the  voter  in  the  act  of  voting  must  be 
simple  and  easy  to  comprehend.  Tricky  ar- 
rangements of  the  ballot  or  intricate  rules  of 
procedure  may  operate  to  disfranchise  thou- 
sands of  voters.  The  operation  of  voting  might 
easily  be  made  so  elaborate  that  the  bulk  of  the 
people  would  be  certain  to  violate  the  rules  and 
lose  their  votes  —  and  again,  government  by  a 
small  minority  would  result  automatically. 

Notice  that  in  such  cases  the  failure  of  demo- 
cratic government  to  develop  according  to  pro- 
gramme is  only  the  normal,  to-be-expected 
result  and  implies  no  discredit  whatever  to  the 
people.  The  people  are  the  same  under  an  un- 
practical form  of  democracy  as  under  a  practi- 
cal one. 

It  would  be  easy  to  invent  a  thousand  ways 
of  planning  an  apparently  democratic  form  of 
government  that  would  in  all  normal  conditions 
result  in  oligarchy.  Knowing  that  the  people 
are  obliged  by  natural  economic  pressure  to 
work  to  their  maximum  efficiency  at  gainful 
occupation,  it  is  only  necessary  somehow  to 
elaborate  electoral  processes  until  the  bulk  of 


DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT        17 

the  people  have  n't  time  to  master  those  pro- 
cesses —  whereupon  they  automatically  become 
the  political  slaves  of  those  who  do  have  time. 
Suppose,  for  example,  that  the  polls,  instead 
of  being  placed  at  every  barber's  shop,  were 
placed  in  the  centre  of  the  county,  so  that  the 
bulk  of  the  people  had  to  travel  considerable 
distances  to  get  there.  Suppose  also  that  elec- 
tions came  every  month  instead  of  once  or  twice 
a  year.  Sheer  inability  to  spend  so  much  time 
on  their  unpaid  duties  of  citizenship,  when 
these  interfered  with  the  nearer  duty  of  getting 
bread  and  butter,  would  automatically  exclude 
the  majority  and  throw  control  of  the  govern- 
ment into  the  hands  of  those  few  who  lived  near 
the  polls.  That  would,  of  course,  be  oligarchy; 
yet  again  the  catch-phrase  makers  could  argue 
that  it  was  genuine  democracy.  It  could  be 
argued  that  the  people  had  the  right  to  vote  but 
were  defaulting  their  obligations,  and  we  should 
hear  of  the  need  for  "an  aroused  civic  con- 
science" and  "an  awakening  of  the  people  to 
their  privileges."  Men  of  easy  conscience  would 
take  up  their  residence  near  the  polls  for  the 
sake  of  the  opportunities  there,  while  men  in 
that  locality  who  were  unwilling  to  misuse  those 
opportunities  would  have  less  incentive  than 


18          SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

the  latter  to  remain  in  the  neighborhood  and 
would  tend  to  be  forced  out.  The  group  of 
voters  near  the  polls  would  be  holding  the  gov- 
ernment in  an  informal  trust  for  the  balance  of 
the  electorate.  And  since  that  power  would  be 
accessible  to  any  one  who  chose  to  live  there, 
and  would  offer  livelihood  and  wealth  to  corrupt 
men  and  nothing  but  thankless  labor  to  good 
men,  it  is  inevitable  that  the  trust  would  be 
betrayed. 

Would  the  people  be  to  blame  for  not  pro- 
tecting their  own  interests  under  those  circum- 
stances? Could  it  be  fairly  claimed  that  they 
ought  to  give  up  productive  labor  on  so  many 
days  of  the  year?  Is  it  not  clear  that  those  of 
the  people  who  whole-heartedly  strove  to  ful- 
fill these  arbitrary  requirements  of  citizenship 
would  suffer  in  business  competition  with  those 
who  did  not?  Should  the  merchant  close  his 
shop  so  that  he  could  go  to  vote,  leaving  his  less 
patriotic  competitor  in  possession  of  the  field? 
Would  not  the  clerk  who  insisted  on  taking  a 
day  off  every  month  to  vote  be  worth  less  to  his 
employer  than  one  who  was  willing  to  ignore 
such  "duties"?  Would  not  the  first  question 
asked  of  an  applicant  for  a  job  be:  "Do  you 
insist  on  voting?"  The  conditions  would  put  a 


DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT        19 

premium  on  the  neglect  of  politics.  None  but 
the  independently  wealthy  or  the  unemployed 
could  afford  to  be  factors  in  the  government 
without  remuneration.  And  it  would  be  no 
reflection  on  the  people  if  it  were  found  that 
only  a  few  were  in  politics  —  rather  it  would 
show  that  they  were  loyal  to  the  higher  duty  of 
working  as  hard  as  they  could  to  provide  home 
and  comfort  for  their  families. 

The  whole  outcome  of  a  failure  to  keep  with- 
in this  limitation  of  "convenience  of  voting" 
can  thus  be  easily  seen  to  be  wholly  irrespective 
of  the  "civic  virtue"  of  the  people.  It  is  an  out- 
come that  would  result  among  peoples  which 
now  govern  themselves  with  complete  success, 
as  certainly  as  among  peoples  whose  self-gov- 
ernment is  commonly  characterized  as  rotten. 

Now  for  the  rule  based  on  this  reasoning. 
(Look  out!  For  if  you  are  so  incautious  as  to 
admit  this  point,  I  shall  have  converted  you  to 
the  major  premise  of  this  whole  book.) 

No  plan  of  government  is  a  democracy  unless  on 
actual  trial  it  proves  to  be  one.  The  fact  that  those 
who  planned  it  intended  it  to  be  a  democracy 
and  could  argue  that  it  would  be  one  if  the  peo- 
ple would  only  do  thus  and  so,  proves  nothing 
-if  it  doesn't  "democ,"  it  isn't  democracy! 


20         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

And  I  will  ask  you  to  agree  as  a  result  of 
this  chapter  of  fancies,  that  democracy  has 
limits,  —  many  limits,  —  and  that  overstep- 
ping some  of  these  limits  may  result  in  oli- 
garchy. 

From  this  point  we  will  move  nearer  to  our 
subject,  and  see  whether  our  American  form  of 
government  has  not  at  some  points  gone  be- 
yond the  limits  of  practicability. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   SHORT  BALLOT 

G SITING  a  government  that  will  normally 
obey  the  people  is  a  matter  of  making  it 
feasible  for  the  people  to  put  into  public  office 
the  men  they  want  there  —  and  none  else. 
This,  in  turn,  is  a  matter  of  exposing  candidates 
to  adequate  public  examination  before  elec- 
tion, so  that  when  the  voters  go  to  the  polls 
they  will  have  had  ample  information  to  enable 
them  to  decide  intelligently  which  man  they 
want  as  their  representative  and  servant. 

If  after  the  people  have  seen  a  man  they  elect 
him,  they  must  stand  by  their  verdict.  Their 
only  protection  is  to  see  what  they  are  getting. 
The  only  thing  that  can  happen  is  that  they 
may  elect  a  man  they  do  not  really  want,  and 
that  sometimes  happens.  The  only  legitimate 
protection  the  people  may  be  given  is  the  full- 
est chance  to  scrutinize  the  candidates.  Ar- 
range for  the  fullest,  most  intensive  scrutiny, 
and  you  have  done  all  that  can  be  done.  Scru- 
tiny at  election  is  vital  to  democracy.  Deny 


22         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

to  the  people  the  opportunity  to  scrutinize  the 
candidates,  and  you  have  left  them  fighting 
blindly  and  futilely  in  the  dark. 

One  method  of  concealing  the  candidate 
from  the  public  gaze  is  to  have  so  many  elections 
at  one  time  that  each  candidate  is  sheltered  by 
the  confusion. 

Notice  I  use  the  plural  —  "elections."  The 
habit  of  saying  "election  day"  instead  of 
"elections  day,"  and  "election"  instead  of 
"elections,"  has  caused  more  trouble  than  any 
other  idiom  of  the  language.  When  we  fill  ten 
offices  by  popular  vote  in  a  single  day,  we  call 
it  "an  election,"  but  it  is  really  ten  elections. 

When  Ohio  holds  forty-seven  elections  on  one 
day,  does  the  average  citizen  read  the  names, 
casting  a  straight  Republican  ticket  only  when 
finding  that  each  Republican  candidate  is  to 
his  liking?  Or  does  the  average  citizen  ignore 
the  individual  names  for  the  most  part  and  place 
his  dependence  on  the  party  management?  To 
find  this  out,  demand  of  the  average  citizen  on 
the  evening  following  elections  day,  as  he 
stands  before  the  stereopticon  screen  watching 
the  returns,  "Whom  did  you  vote  for?" 

"Taft  for  president  and  Harmon  for  gov- 
ernor," he  will  answer. 


THE  SHORT  BALLOT  23 

"Whom  else?" 

"The  Republican  National  ticket  and  the 
Democratic  State  ticket." 

"But  what  men?  You  voted  for  forty-seven, 
you  know,  and  you  've  only  named  two!  Whom 
did  you  vote  to  send  to  the  state  legislature? 
And  whom  did  you  pick  for  county  clerk?  And 
for  dairy  and  food  commissioner  and  coroner?  " 

"Oh,  I  don't  know  —  I  'm  not  in  politics." 

I  dare  say  that  even  the  politicians  of  Ohio 
take  most  of  their  ticket  on  faith  in  this  way. 

In  Cleveland  a  certain  militant  reformer  re- 
lates that  he  spent  most  of  his  time  for  weeks 
before  one  of  these  elections  working  as  one  of  a 
committee  to  investigate  all  the  candidates  and 
publish  recommendations  for  the  guidance  of 
the  voters.  He  had  special  facilities,  he  became 
an  expert  in  the  business  of  citizenship,  and  by 
election  time  was  one  of  the  few  men  in  town 
who  had  studied  all  the  candidates  of  all  parties. 
When  he  went  to  vote,  himself,  he  found  to  his 
dismay  that  he  had  omitted  to  bring  along  his 
carefully  compiled  memoranda.  He  attempted 
to  vote  for  the  long  list  of  forty-seven  offices 
from  memory,  found  himself  confused  and  in 
doubt  at  various  points,  and  finally  cast  a  ballot 
which  he  later  found  contained  several  mistakes. 


24         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

In  giving  weeks  of  time  to  political  inquiry, 
this  man  was  doing  no  more  than  every  citizen 
was  supposed  to  do.  If  he  needed  a  memorandum 
to  aid  his  memory,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  every  other  citizen  needed  one  at  least  as 
badly.  If  the  citizens  knew  what  they  were 
doing  at  that  election,  every  one  of  them  must 
have  had  such  a  memorandum  in  the  polling- 
booth,  copying  the  forty-seven  separate  marks, 
the  vote  must  have  shown  substantial  variations 
on  different  offices,  and  the  citizens  must  have 
been  exchanging  ideas  for  many  days  before- 
hand on  such  subjects  as  Smith's  qualifications 
for  the  post  of  state  dairy  and  food  commis- 
sioner, and  Jones's  ideas  regarding  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  coroner's  office!  Did  they? 
Or  did  the  citizens  vote  without  stopping  to 
read  the  ballot,  without  knowing  even  the 
names  of  all  the  offices  that  were  to  be  filled, 
simply  rubber-stamping,  without  scrutiny,  the 
ready-made  tickets  of  the  politicians?  And  if 
the  politicians  are  only  ten  per  cent  or  five  per 
cent,  or,  as  I  suspect,  less  than  one  per  cent  of 
the  population,  is  not  Ohio  an  oligarchy? 

When  the  ballot  is  long,  i.  e.,  when  there  are 
many  offices  to  be  filled  simultaneously  by 
popular  vote,  the  people  (except  in  village  elec- 


THE  SHORT  BALLOT  25 

tions  where  they  can  recognize  every  name  at 
sight)  will  not  scrutinize  every  name,  but  will 
give  their  attention  to  a  few  conspicuous  ones 
and  vote  for  the  others  blindly.  In  voting 
blindly  for  any  name  the  politicians  select,  the 
people  are  simply  delegating  then*  choice  to  a 
few  half-known,  irresponsible  men  whom  they 
had  no  voice  in  choosing.  The  attempt  to  get 
the  people  to  say  who  shall  be  county  clerk, 
for  instance,  has  failed.  It  is  like  asking  a  ques- 
tion of  a  crowd  and  accepting  the  few  scatter- 
ing answers  as  the  verdict  of  the  whole  mob.  It 
is  not  democracy,  but  oligarchy,  just  as  in  the 
imagined  case  of  a  county  that  held  incessant 
elections  at  an  inconvenient  polling-place.  In 
this  case  it  is  not  the  inconvenience  of  voting 
which  practically  disfranchises  the  bulk  of  the 
citizens,  but  the  inconvenience  of  voting  intelli- 
gently. In  the  test  of  practice  it  has  thus  been 
demonstrated  that  if  the  people  are  asked  forty- 
seven  questions  at  one  time,  they  will  not  give 
back  forty-seven  answers  of  their  own,  but  will 
let  others  make  most  of  these  answers  for  them. 
This  is  no  reflection  on  the  morals  or  intelli- 
gence of  the  people.  (Even  if  it  were,  in  plan- 
ning a  workable  democracy  we  should  have  to 
cut  our  cloth  accordingly.)  It  is  simply  evi- 


26         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

dence  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  asking  the 
people  more  questions  than  they  will  answer 
carefully.  In  blindly  ratifying  party  nomina- 
tions the  people  of  Ohio  are  doing  a  much  better 
thing  than  voting  at  random  or  not  voting  at 
all.  The  controlling  elements  in  the  party  have 
some  slight  responsibility  and  some  desire  to 
"make  good."  There  is  some  chance  to  blame 
and  punish  some  one  if  things  go  wrong. 

Let  us  imagine  a  typical  citizen  trying  to  do 
better,  —  trying  to  get  along  without  party 
guidance,  —  trying  to  act  as  an  independent 
judge,  without  bias  and  thinking  only  of  the 
common  good.  His  vital  need  is  for  light  on  the 
subject.  How  is  he  to  get  it?  Remember  that 
economic  pressure  is  driving  him  to  his  maxi- 
mum efficiency  in  gainful  occupation.  To  do  his 
duty  to  self  and  family  he  must  work  as  hard  as 
he  can.  If  he  finds  himself  still  fresh  at  the  end 
of  the  day's  labor,  it  signifies  that  he  could 
safely  have  worked  harder  or  longer  to  give  his 
wife  a  better  home  or  his  children  a  better  edu- 
cation! Any  unremunerated  labor  that  he  ex- 
pends displaces  profitable  labor  and  can  be 
performed  only  in  small  amounts  or  for  short 
periods.  Sustained  effort  in  unpaid  work, 
whether  it  be  the  work  of  citizenship  or  some- 


THE  SHORT  BALLOT  27 

thing  else,  is  incompatible  with  his  economic 
efficiency.  For  the  average  man,  pressed  by 
competition  in  mill  or  shop  or  office,  it  is  sim- 
ply impossible. 

To  "go  into  politics,"  to  become  an  active 
and  responsible  and  effective  force  in  a  political 
machine,  is  utterly  beyond  the  powers  of  the 
average  man,  because  it  calls  for  a  very  large 
amount  of  such  sustained  unpaid  effort.  For 
the  most  part  the  men  who  are  active  in  politics 
are  not  unpaid.  Either  their  political  acquaint- 
ance is  in  some  way  profitable  to  them  or  they 
are  chronic  office-holders  who  regard  political 
activity  as  part  of  their  job.  (Young  men  with 
energy  to  spare  and  no  family  burdens  are  also 
frequently  seen  in  such  circles;  but  when  they 
marry  and  begin  to  feel  the  economic  pressure 
they  soon  retire  from  active  work.) 

Yet  to  "go  into  politics,"  impossible  as  this 
generally  is,  is  the  only  way  our  typical  citizen 
can  gain  any  direct  information  regarding  the 
men  on  whom  he  is  to  pass  judgment  at  the 
polls.  His  newspaper  barely  mentions  the  can- 
didates for  minor  offices  —  its  limelight  flits 
over  them  fitfully,  and  finding  nothing  pictur- 
esque, leaves  them  in  darkness.  Candidates 
sometimes  campaign  and  get  elected  on  the 


28         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

tail  of  the  ticket  without  ever  getting  a  line  of 
newspaper  publicity.  They  can  get  no  indi- 
vidual hearing  because  the  public  is  hardly 
aware  that  their  little  office  is  being  contested 
for.  A  candidate  for  clerk  of  courts  who  tried 
to  explain  to  the  people  the  work  of  his  office 
and  the  improvements  he  proposed  to  install, 
would  be  classed  as  "eccentric"  and  his  ef- 
forts would  be  futile.  This  or  that  audience 
might  listen  respectfully  enough,  but  he  could 
never  force  the  issue  to  a  point  where  his  op- 
ponents would  feel  obliged  to  reply.  Forty- 
seven  elections  does  not  mean  forty-seven  tech- 
nical debates  during  the  campaign,  by  any 
means.  The  people,  unable  to  oversee  so  many 
separate  contests,  simply  allow  sets  of  candi- 
dates to  be  tied  together  for  them  in  bunches 
like  asparagus,  and  then  vote  them  by  the 
bunch.  A  hopeful  independent  candidacy  in 
Ohio  for  one  of  these  minor  offices  is  almost 
unheard  of.  An  independent  contestant  would 
be  utterly  lost  in  the  shuffle  and  could  not  se- 
cure any  public  attention. 

All  the  power  of  public  discussion  is  so  wasted 
by  dissipation  that  our  typical  citizen  is  un- 
able to  hear  enough  facts  to  obtain  basis  for  a 
judgment.  It  is  no  disparagement  of  the  com- 


THE  SHORT  BALLOT  29 

prehension  of  the  average  citizen  of  Ohio  to  say 
that  he  never  casts  a  completely  intelligent 
ballot  —  it  is  only  saying  that,  being  a  man, 
and  not  a  cat,  he  cannot  see  in  the  dark! 
.  Thus  the  sheer  amount  of  political  work 
thrust  on  the  Ohio  citizen  is  so  great  that  he 
cannot  perform  it  intelligently  without  the  im- 
possible sacrifice  of  economic  efficiency.  The 
typical  Ohio  citizen,  therefore,  wisely  defaults 
these  excessive  political  obligations  which  are 
thus  arbitrarily  put  upon  him,  leaving  the 
control  in  the  hands  of  those  few  who  for  one 
reason  or  another  can  take  time  and  energy 
for  such  work.  A  ballot  of  forty-seven  offices 
thus  makes  citizenship  a  specialty  —  a  pro- 
fession —  a  thing  for  experts  and  not  for  the 
people. 

If  forty-seven  places  is  too  long,  then  how 
much  shorter  must  the  ballot  be? 

If  the  people  are  not  to  rely  blindly  on  ready- 
made  lists  prepared  for  them,  they  must  rely 
on  individual  lists  of  their  own.  That  fact 
reduces  us  to  the  psychological  question: 
How  many  candidates  will  the  average  man 
remember  for  himself?  How  many  separate 
contests  will  he  keep  clearly  defined  in  his 
memory?  How  many  mental  images  or  impres- 


30         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

sions  of  contesting  candidates  will  he  hold  in 
mind  without  confusion?  For  on  election  day 
he  is  to  see  their  names  before  him  on  the  bal- 
lot, and  to  choose  for  himself  on  a  basis  of  his 
knowledge  regarding  them. 

Exact  determination  of  the  number  is  not 
possible,  but  the  best  test  is  to  observe  the 
tendency  of  "tickets"  to  appear  when  a  non- 
partisan  ballot  is  in  use.  We  are  near  enough 
now  to  the  end  of  the  problem  to  establish  a 
rule :  — 

To  keep  a  government  by  elected  officers 
from  becoming  an  oligarchy,  — 

The  ballot  must  be  short  I 

How  short? 

Short  enough  (!)  —  so  that  the  number  of 
choices  to  be  made  by  the  voters  will  not  be 
so  great  as  to  conceal  the  individual  candidates 
from  a  public  scrutiny  that  will  be  adequate 
to  exclude  any  one  whom  the  voters  do  not 
really  want. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   OFFICE   MUST  BE   IMPORTANT 

I  LEFT  you  in  the  last  chapter  with  a  for- 
mula on  your  hands  instead  of  the  answer 
itself.  My  reason  was  that  in  any  examination 
of  facts  regarding  the  trouble  caused  by  over- 
long  ballots,  we  find  the  evidence  inextricably 
entangled  with  a  second  cause  of  invisibility  — 
namely,  the  unimportant  character  of  many 
elective  offices. 

We  might  have  a  short  ballot  that  covered 
only  one  office;  but  if  that  office  were  that  of 
coroner,  the  people  at  large  would  shrug  their 
shoulders  and  pass  on  indifferent.  There  are 
and  ought  to  be  other  things  more  important 
to  the  people  than  the  question,  "Who  shall 
be  coroner?"  It  is  no  slight  thing  to  ask  all 
the  men  of  a  city  to  bestir  themselves  all  at  one 
time  regarding  any  question.  The  question 
may  easily  be  too  trivial.  The  average  man's 
share  of  interest  in  getting  the  better  candi- 
date for  coroner  elected  is  so  infinitesimal  as 
not  to  warrant  the  slightest  exertion  on  his 


32         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

part.  The  powers  of  the  coroner  in  a  small 
community  are  insignificant.  In  a  large  city 
the  coroner  may  have  a  busy  office,  but  in  pro- 
portion to  the  community  he  is  insignificant 
still.  If  ninety  per  cent  of  the  people  are  in- 
different to  the  issue,  the  remaining  ten  per 
cent  will  have  their  way  in  the  matter  —  and 
there  we  have  a  bit  of  oligarchy.  If  the  coroner- 
ship  were  the  only  office  to  be  filled  on  a  cer- 
tain day,  only  a  few  of  the  people  would  go 
to  the  polls,  and  the  attempt  to  make  the  people 
stand  up  and  be  counted  on  the  issue  would 
thereby  be  a  failure.  If  the  mayor  and  the 
coroner  were  the  only  two  offices  to  be  filled, 
the  people  would  be  drawn  to  the  polls  by  the 
mayoralty  contest,  but  their  votes  on  the 
coronership  would  represent  no  clear  or  ade- 
quate information  and  would  be  easily  influ- 
enced by  the  few  citizens  who  were  interested. 
A  full  vote  for  coroner  under  these  circumstances 
would  be  no  more  a  real  verdict  of  the  people 
than  in  the  other  case. 

Probably  no  city  has  suffered  so  much  from 
ballots  that  ask  fatuous  questions  as  Phila- 
delphia. A  few  years  ago  I  was  invited  to 
address  a  luncheon  at  the  Philadelphia  City 
Club,  a  political-reform  association,  and  was 


OFFICE  MUST  BE  IMPORTANT      33 

astonished  to  find  that  the  Saturday  selected 
for  the  discussion  of  my  purely  academic  sub- 
ject was  the  one  immediately  preceding  the 
Tuesday  of  a  semi-annual  election  —  a  time 
when  it  would  be  expected  that  the  "burning 
issues  of  the  campaign"  would  be  the  natural 
theme.  But  neither  the  city  streets  nor  the 
club-house  showed  anything  to  indicate  that 
an  election  campaign  was  in  progress.  The 
local  newspaper  of  that  Saturday  contained 
only  one  column  of  political  news  —  a  state- 
ment issued  by  the  "Committee  of  Seventy," 
which  began,  "We  beg  to  remind  (!)  the  citi- 
zens of  Philadelphia  of  the  election  to  be  held 
next  Tuesday."  Members  of  the  City  Club 
who  had  been  enough  interested  in  better 
government  to  come  to  the  luncheon  to  dis- 
cuss civic  problems  said  that  they  did  not  know 
what  officials  were  to  be  elected  or  who  the 
candidates  were.  The  absence  of  newspaper 
publicity  and  general  interest  made  it  prob- 
able that  the  rest  of  the  city  knew  as  little. 
An  examination  of  the  ballot  gave  an  ample 
answer  for  the  condition.  None  of  the  offices 
were  of  importance,  being  minor  judicial  and 
clerical  posts;  and  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  in 
wasting  little  attention  on  the  election,  was 


34         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

relegating  the  whole  issue  to  its  proper  posi- 
tion. 

One  of  the  elective  offices,  for  instance,  is 
that  of  inspector  of  election  —  the  officer  who 
is  to  count  the  votes  at  the  polling-place.  The 
incumbent  works  only  one  day.  There  are 
1170  of  these  posts  in  Philadelphia.  If  all  their 
work  were  concentrated  in  one  officer's  hands 
it  would  not,  even  then,  make  a  conspicuous 
office.  How  inconspicuous  it  becomes  when 
subdivided  into  1170  parts  was  revealed  a  few 
years  ago  when  one  "Clarence  Boyd,"  who  was 
elected  by  "the  triumphant  verdict  of  the 
people,"  was  some  time  after  discovered  to 
be  non-existent.  (The  man  who  appeared  and 
performed  his  duties  came  from  outside  the 
state,  so  that  when  wanted  later  by  the  courts 
on  account  of  frauds  which  he  perpetrated 
while  in  office,  he  was  not  obliged  to  go  to  the 
inconvenience  of  changing  his  domicile!) 

Now  this  is  an  extreme  case,  to  be  sure  — 
but  it  is  a  real  one,  and  as  we  can  of  ttimes  com- 
prehend an  extreme  case  more  clearly  than  an 
ordinary  one,  we  will  use  it  as  a  text. ' 

In  theory  the  people  of  Clarence  Boyd's  dis- 
trict should  have  studied  the  relative  qualifica- 
tions of  the  various  candidates  and  chosen  the 


OFFICE  MUST  BE  IMPORTANT      35 

one  who  met  with  their  approval.  In  a  com- 
munity where  no  man  knew  all  his  neigh- 
bors, however,  the  fact  that  Clarence  Boyd  did 
not  exist  was  not  discoverable  by  the  methods 
of  inquiry  that  are  available  to  the  average 
voter.  The  fact  that  there  was  absolute  si- 
lence on  the  part  of  Clarence  Boyd  during  the 
weeks  prior  to  election  excited  no  suspicion. 
Candidates  for  the  office  in  question  never 
make  a  campaign,  for  the  ample  reason  that 
no  one  would  ever  listen  if  they  did.  Nothing 
but  the  discovery  of  a  plot  for  fraud  would  at- 
tract attention  to  such  a  picayune  contest. 

Now  the  Committee  of  Seventy  investigates 
these  little  nominations,  to  point  out  the  re- 
liable candidates.  Many  people  when  they 
understand  the  plan  follow  these  recommenda- 
tions. They  will  not  do  so  on  account  of  evi- 
dence submitted  to  them,  but  primarily  be- 
cause the  Committee  of  Seventy  wants  them 
to,  and  they  trust  the  sincerity  and  the  ability 
of  that  organization.  The  publication  of  the 
name  of  the  candidate  recommended,  unaccom- 
panied by  evidence,  is  enough  for  practically 
all  the  voters  who  accept  this  leadership.  This 
is  a  vital  point !  Open-eyed  acceptance  of  lead- 
ership is  legitimate  and  desirable;  but  here  we 


36         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

have  blind  acceptance  —  an  entirely  differ- 
ent thing,  for  it  gives  the  leaders  opportunity 
to  profit  by  misleading  their  followers.  Open- 
eyed  acceptance  of  leadership  involves  few 
perils;  blind  acceptance  involves  many. 

When  the  office  is  sufficiently  uninteresting, 
it  becomes  invisible,  and  the  popular  accept- 
ance of  leadership  will  then  be  blind. 

The  ways  in  which  a  ballot  may  be  uninter- 
esting are  numerous.  In  the  Philadelphia  in- 
stance just  cited,  the  office  was  too  miserably 
insignificant  to  stir  the  multitude  to  adequate 
inquiry.  Many  offices  lie  outside  the  purifying 
spot-light  by  reason  of  their  character,  even 
when  they  are  of  considerable  importance. 
Technical  offices,  for  instance,  are  habitually 
in  obscurity,  and  the  same  is  true  of  any  cleri- 
cal or  purely  administrative  post.  What,  for 
instance,  can  the  candidate  for  the  post  of 
state  treasurer  do  to  demonstrate  his  supe- 
riority over  rival  claimants  for  the  position? 
He  can  claim  that  he  will  be  honest  and  sys- 
tematic and  intelligent  —  but  so  can  his  rivals. 
If  the  accounting  system  of  the  state  is  out  of 
date  he  can  promise  reform  —  but  he  can't 
stir  the  people  to  strenuous  partisanship  on  his 
behalf  by  talking  about  book-keeping.  Nothing 


OFFICE  MUST  BE  IMPORTANT      37 

he  can  do  can  alter  the  fact  that  there  is  little 
or  nothing  in  the  state  treasurership  out  of 
which  to  make  an  issue  that  will  fire  the  im- 
agination of  a  million  voters.  There  is  an  in- 
evitable loginess  to  the  mass  of  the  people  — 
the  simple  inertia  of  bigness.  Let  our  candi- 
date talk  to  a  quiet  little  audience  of  a  hun- 
dred, and  he  will  win  them.  Let  him  talk  to 
an  audience  of  several  thousand,  and  he  will 
be  unable  to  hold  their  attention  at  all  on 
such  a  subject.  His  appeal  to  the  million 
will  fall  flatter  yet;  in  fact,  he  will  secure  no 
hearing  at  all.  Accordingly  such  candidates 
habitually  ignore  their  own -contests  and  con- 
fine themselves  to  supporting  the  head  of 
the  ticket  and  the  broad  party  issues  of  the 
campaign. 

Looking  at  the  matter  from  another  angle, 
suppose  that  the  Republican  and  Democratic 
candidates  for  state  treasurer  hi  New  York 
were  nothing  more  than  respectable  politi- 
cians. Would  that  fact  create  opportunity  for 
an  expert  accountant  to  run  independently  for 
the  place?  Would  the  fact  of  his  superior  fit- 
ness be  enough  to  make  New  York's  eight 
millions  look  his  way  and  make  note  of  him 
for  election  day?  Theoretically,  yes.  In  fact, 


38         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

no.  Independent  candidatures  for  such  offices 
in  states  and  cities  are  quite  unknown  and  un- 
hopeful. In  a  court-room  an  interesting  case 
obtains  fair  hearing  from  the  jury  because  the 
jury  must  stay  and  listen;  but  here  are  advo- 
cates pleading  their  uninteresting  case  before 
a  crowd  in  the  market-place,  the  crowd  being 
at  liberty  to  drift  away  to  the  ball  game  if  it 
chooses!  The  case  will  be  decided  by  the  few 
who  remain  —  oligarchy  again ! 

Any  office  which  may  properly  be  conducted 
in  only  one  way  will  make  an  uninteresting  sub- 
ject for  an  election  contest.  The  people  can- 
not be  expected  to  take  sides  on  a  question  if 
it  is  only  a  one-sided  question.  Partisanship 
cannot  be  provoked  when  all  the  rival  candi- 
dates promise  the  same  things.  Unless  a  con- 
spiracy to  misuse  the  office  can  be  alleged  (and 
not  always  then),  the  people  will  not  develop 
a  preference  among  the  candidates.  The  differ- 
ence in  the  lives  and  equipment  of  candidates 
will  rarely  come  clearly  enough  before  the 
millions  to  make  them  divide  on  these  per- 
sonal distinctions  alone.  The  question  of  which 
man  shall  draw  the  salary  is  not  momentous  and 
cannot  be  made  so. 

Into  this  classification  of  undebatable  offices 


OFFICE  MUST  BE  IMPORTANT      39 

fall  many  that  are  now  elective  in  the  United 
States.  To  retain  them  on  the  elective  list  is 
undemocratic.  Nothing  is  so  undemocratic  as 
government  in  the  dark,  and  to  put  on  the 
elective  list  offices  which  are  naturally  and  in- 
evitably invisible  is  compelling  the  people  to 
delegate  power  to  officials  cloaked  in  darkness. 
The  more  obscure  the  office,  by  reason  either 
of  its  insignificance  or  of  its  undebatable 
character,  the  weaker  is  the  control  of  the 
people  over  it,  and  the  stronger  is  the  control 
of  the  politician. 

The  net  result  of  all  these  considerations  is 
to  show  a  need  for  the  elimination  from  the 
elective  list  of 

(1)  all  offices  that  are  not  large  enough  in 
themselves  to  stir  the  people  to  take  sides; 

(2)  all  offices  that  determine  no  policies  large 
enough  to  stir  the  people  to  take  sides. 

For  if  the  people  won't  settle  the  question 
you  put  to  them,  some  few  self-seekers  will. 
To  shout  at  the  people  questions  which  the 
people  either  will  not  or  cannot  answer  care- 
fully, is  not  doing  the  people  a  favor.  It  is  only 
making  certain  that  the  questions  will  be 
answered  by  some  one  else. 

We  must  confine  the  participation  of  the 


40         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

people  to  questions  which  they  want  to  de- 
cide. Each  elective  office  must  be  interesting. 

The  test  to  apply  to  an  office  to  ascertain 
whether  it  is  "interesting"  is,  of  course,  to  in- 
quire whether  it  does  actually  interest  the 
people.  Your  opinion  or  mine  as  to  whether 
the  office  of  judge  ought  to  interest  the  people 
is  of  no  importance;  the  question  is  —  Does  it? 
If  the  bulk  of  the  people  are  interested  enough 
to  divide  on  the  question  and  stand  up  and 
be  counted  on  the  issue,  then  the  judge  may 
properly  be  made  elective.  If  only  a  few  of  the 
people  develop  opinions  clear  enough  to  impel 
them  to  take  sides  in  the  contest,  then  your 
plan  of  having  all  the  people  select  the  judge 
has  failed  to  work.  You  have  created  oligarchy 
instead  of  democracy.  You  must  then  make 
the  judge  appointive  by  some  one  whom  the 
people  did  select. 

By  taking  sides,  I  do  not  mean  merely  that 
the  people  must  vote.  Goodness  knows,  the 
people  will  vote  readily  enough  without  taking 
sides!  A  full  vote  for  the  city  clerk  does  not 
mean  that  the  whole  city,  or  any  perceptible 
part  of  it,  was  really  interested.  Look  closely 
at  the  vote  and  you  will  notice  that  the  city 
treasurer  was  elected  by  practically  exactly 


OFFICE  MUST  BE  IMPORTANT      41 

the  same  majority  as  the  clerk.  Look  back 
over  the  records  of  previous  elections  and  you 
will  find  that  one  year  the  two  Democrats  were 
elected  by  parallel  pluralities  and  next  year 
the  two  Republicans  were  elected  also  by  almost 
identical  figures.  How  curious  that  each  time 
the  two  candidates  of  one  party  should  find 
favor  with  almost  the  same  number  of  people! 
The  absence  of  wide  fluctuations  is  one  proof 
that  the  people  did  not  really  take  sides  at  all, 
but  blindly  delegated  the  work  en  bloc  to  their 
party  managers. 

Another  way  to  investigate  is  to  inquire,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  long  ballot  discussed  in  the 
previous  chapter,  whether  the  voters  know 
what  they  are.doing  on  election  day.  If  most  of 
them  can  give  no  reason  for  preferring  Smith 
over  Jones  as  city  clerk,  then  obviously  they 
are  not  doing  the  selecting,  but  are  blindly 
ratifying  some  one  else's  selection  for  that  of- 
fice. Democracy  requires  that  all  the  people 
shall  join  in  doing  the  selecting.  To  make  them 
do  the  electing  is  by  no  means  sufficient. 

The  people  must  take  an  interest  in  all  their 
electoral  work  if  they  are  to  be  masters.  If 
they  do  not  take  an  interest  in  a  given  ballot 
there  are  two  solutions  —  change  the  people  or 


42         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

change  the  ballot.  As  the  people  are  too  big  to 
be  spanked,  and  since  human  nature  in  the 
mass  responds  but  slowly  to  prayer,  it  is  good 
sense  to  change  the  ballot. ' 

Don't    forget    our   major   premise  —  if   it 
does  n't  "democ,"  it  is  n't  democracy! 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  NATURE  OF  POPULAR  INTEREST 

DEMOCRATIC  government  is  government 
controlled  by  the  people,  and  all  the  real 
rights  of  the  people  are  served  if  the  govern- 
ment obeys  their  wishes.  If  the  wish  of  the 
people  is  unanimous,  and  if  the  government 
acts  in  accord  therewith  without  waiting  for 
orders,  an  election  is  unnecessary.  An  election 
is  due  whenever  the  people  are  interested  in  a 
question  and  divided  in  their  opinions.  A  demo- 
cratic government  will  then  arrange  to  have 
the  people  stand  up,  divide,  and  be  counted, 
and  being  unable  to  please  all,  will  be  con- 
tent to  please  the  majority. 

For  example,  it  was  proposed  a  few  years 
ago  in  New  York  State  to  enlarge  the  Erie 
Canal  at  a  cost  of  $101,000,000.  Vast  interests 
were  affected,  whole  cities  expected  renewed 
prosperity  from  it,  yet  the  cost  was  enormous. 
The  legislature  did  not  know  the  feeling  of 
the  people  on  the  subject.  The  matter  was  put 
before  the  people  by  referendum  and  the  ex- 


44         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

penditure  was  authorized.  The  selection  of  an 
engineer  to  construct  the  canal  was  not  how- 
ever a  matter  of  sufficient  interest  to  the  people 
to  warrant  the  taking  of  a  vote.  Everybody 
wanted  the  work  done  well,  economically,  and 
promptly,  but  was  perfectly  willing  to  let  the 
governor  appoint  the  engineer.  Had  the  engi- 
neer been  made  elective,  the  people  would  have 
been  confronted  with  a  task  of  the  utmost  deli- 
cacy, —  not  a  task  where  the  opinions  of  the 
multitude  were  of  value,  but  one  which  de- 
manded intensive  and  intimate  investigation, 
such  as  could  be  conducted  only  by  a  very 
few  men.  It  is  no  easy  task  to  choose  an  engi- 
neer for  such  a  great  undertaking.  The  task 
calls  for  special  information  rather  than  the 
collection  of  many  judgments.  The  appointive 
way  which  was  adopted  secured  for  the  people 
better  service  than  the  elective  way. 

The  choice  of  a  good  administrator  is  an  even 
more  delicate  task  than  the  choice  of  a  good 
engineer.  An  engineer  can  point  to  definite 
achievements  and  evidences  of  standing  in  his 
profession.  He  can  say:  "I  built  that  bridge 
—  does  not  that  prove  me  competent  to  take 
charge  of  public  works  ?  My  rival  has  never 
built  a  bridge,  nor  can  he  attain  in  private  prac- 


NATURE  OF  POPULAR  INTEREST     45 

tice  fees  half  so  large  as  mine."  But  an  execu- 
tive must  be  selected  on  less  tangible  evidence, 
and  his  work  in  office  is  harder  to  appraise 
with  justice.  Business  corporations  pay  their 
biggest  salaries  to  good  administrators  for 
ability  to  initiate,  to  be  just,  to  inspire  loyalty 
in  subordinates,  to  avoid  errors,  to  see  things 
in  true  proportion.  Success  in  such  things  can- 
not be  measured  and  tabulated.  Only  men 
close  at  hand,  where  they  can  see  it,  can  judge 
it  wisely. 

Even  the  stockholders  of  a  corporation  do  not 
pledge  their  directors  to  support  any  given 
candidate  for  general  manager  of  the  company. 
They  get  better  results  by  leaving  the  decision 
to  representatives  who  are  in  closer  touch  with 
the  situation  than  they.  To  reorganize  the  cor- 
poration by  making  the  stockholders  elect  the 
manager  over  the  heads  of  the  directors  would 
not  add  to  the  power  of  the  stockholders,  since 
all  the  power  comes  from  them  anyway,  and 
wise  stockholders  would  resist  any  attempt  to 
unload  the  responsibility  upon  them  in  this 
fashion.  It  would  not  be  a  privilege;  it  would 
be  denial  of  privilege  —  the  privilege  of  holding 
some  one  else  accountable.  So,  too,  the  people, 
who  are  the  stockholders  of  the  state,  are  en- 


46         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

titled  to  have  the  government  run  as  they  want 
it  run,  without  having  to  leave  other  duties  to 
take  hold  and  run  it  themselves;  and  any  at- 
tempt to  throw  unnecessary  burdens  of  parti- 
cipation upon  the  electorate  plays  into  the 
hands  of  any  public  employee  who  wants  to 
evade  responsibility. 

To  relieve  the  people  of  the  burden  of  choos- 
ing administrators  would  liberate  public  dis- 
cussions from  a  mass  of  dull  detail  that  ob- 
scures greater  issues.  The  principles  proposed 
by  the  candidate  should  not  be  entangled  with 
evidence  as  to  his  fitness  for  personally  admin- 
istering the  execution  of  those  principles. 

The  real  interest  of  the  people  in  the  govern- 
ment is  not  in  administrative  problems,  but  is 
in  making  the  government  obey  when  they 
desire  to  issue  an  order.  Their  interest  is  in 
policies,  and  usually  the  easiest  way  to  put  poli- 
cies into  effect  is  to  elect  men  who  are  charged 
with  the  spirit  of  those  policies  to  positions 
where  they  can  compel  the  installation  of  the 
new  ideas. 

Popular  control  over  policies  is  not  difficult 
to  provide  for.  The  people  may  be  too  big  and 
clumsy  to  handle  the  delicate  task  of  choosing 
administrative  officials,  but  there  can  be  no 


NATURE  OF  POPULAR  INTEREST    47 

doubt  of  their  ability  to  sympathize  with  this 
or  that  proposed  policy  and  to  determine  which 
candidate  represents  their  favorite  ideas.  The 
candidate  who  thus  wins  people  to  his  proposal 
may  not  be  the  one  who  can  best  carry  them 
out.  But  he  may  wisely  be  put  where  he  can 
issue  the  mandate  and  compel  obedience. 

In  one  of  the  commission-governed  cities  re- 
cently a  labor-union  man  was  elected  a  member 
of  the  Commission  of  Five  to  govern  the  town. 
He  had  two  separate  duties  —  to  represent  the 
people  who  elected  him  and  to  administer  the 
department  of  parks  and  public  property.  As 
a  representative  of  the  great  laboring  popula- 
tion he  was  admirable.  He  could  say  with  real 
authority:  "My  people  want  to  have  push-carts 
allowed  around  the  factories  at  noon  so  that 
they  can  buy  cheap  coffee  and  fruit  for  lunch- 
eon, and  I  'm  against  an  ordinance  to  clear  the 
push-carts  off  the  streets.  Put  on  extra  men  to 
clear  up  if  necessary." 

It  was  right  that  labor  should  thus  be  repre- 
sented in  the  high  councils  of  the  city.  Every 
important  section  of  the  people  should  be  re- 
presented hi  its  due  proportion  in  the  govern- 
ment. Democracy  demands  it. 

As  administrative  head  of  the  department 


48         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

of  public  property,  however,  this  man  was 
ineffective.  Administrative  work  was  foreign 
to  his  experience  and  abilities.  He  was  dis- 
placed at  the  next  election  in  favor  of  a  business 
man,  and  his  people  lost  all  representation  on 
the  Commission. 

This  was  both  wrong  and  unnecessary.  The 
office  should  have  been  divided  according  to 
its  administrative  and  representative  functions. 
The  administrative  office  should  have  been 
appointive,  the  representative,  policy-deter- 
mining office  alone  should  have  been  elective. 

The  removal  of  all  offices  from  the  ballot 
except  those  purely  representative  ones  that 
interest  the  people  on  account  of  the  broad 
policies  which  they  may  determine,  will  take 
us  a  long  way  towards  the  "interesting"  bal- 
lot we  are  looking  for,  but  not  all  the  way. 

To  take  an  exaggerated  case  again,  look  at 
the  lower  house  of  the  Philadelphia  councils. 
It  determines  policies  and  interesting  ones,  too. 
But  it  contains  149  members.  Its  decisions 
are  futile  unless  approved  by  the  other  council 
and  by  the  mayor.  The  choice  of  a  single  mem- 
ber of  this  house  is  not  a  big  enough  matter 
by  itself  to  excite  the  interest  of  the  people, 
and  so  Philadelphia  is  called  "corrupt  and  con- 


NATURE  OF  POPULAR  INTEREST     49 

tented."  Interest  can  be  subdivided  until  it  is 
not  interest  at  all. 

Accordingly,  to  conform  to  the  rule  that 
"the  office  must  be  interesting,"  we  find  that 
each  elective  office  must  have  a  large  effect  upon 
interesting  policies. 

How  large? 

Large  enough  (!),  so  that  its  importance  will 
induce  the  people  to  look  after  it. 

To  depart  from  this  rule  involves  serious 
diminution  of  public  interest,  and  the  office 
sinks  back  out  of  the  spot-light  of  public  scru- 
tiny and  becomes  invisible  and  beyond  popular 
supervision.  When  the  people  delegate  power 
to  an  unseen  officer  they  lose  control  of  that 
power,  and  the  government  ceases  to  be  at 
that  point  a  government  controlled  by  the 
people  —  ceases,  that  is,  to  be  a  democratic 
government. 

Democracy  requires  that  the  power  shall 
not  pass  out  of  sight  of  the  people,  but  shall 
remain  entirely  within  their  vision,  in  the  hands 
of  visible  officers. 

Safety  demands  also  that  the  power  shall  not 
be  delegated  to  too  few  officials,  lest  the  people 
become  victims  of  personal  official  caprice; 
but  the  power  must  on  no  account  be  subdi- 


50         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

vided  and  scattered  so  widely  that  the  indi- 
vidual officers,  by  reason  of  their  unimportance, 
lie  outside  the  borders  of  the  spot-light.  Con- 
centrated visible  power  is  controllable  and  not 
dangerous.  Our  visible  elective  servants  will 
never  become  our  monarchs  —  it  is  our  in- 
visible servants  who  organize  oligarchies  and 
monarchies  of  bossism ! 

To  summarize  the  last  three  chapters,  then, 
we  find  that  there  are  three  practical  methods 
of  concealing  public  servants  from  their  mas- 
ters, the  people,  and  thus  causing  popular  con- 
trol to  relax:  — 

(a)  By  having  so  many  elections  simulta- 
neously that  each  individual  candidate  is  lost 
in  the  confusion; 

(6)  By  dividing  a  power  among  so  many 
petty  officers  that  each  one  of  them  escapes 
scrutiny  by  reason  of  insignificance; 

(c)  By  making  an  office  undebatable  in  char- 
acter, so  that  discussion  regarding  it  is  dull 
and  unlikely  to  attract  attention. 

Condensing  this  to  a  catch-phrase,  we  es- 
tablish what  we  will  call  the  First  Limitation 
of  Democracy :  Each  elective  office  must  be 
visible. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   LIMIT   OF  DISTRICT-SIZE 

HAVING  simplified  the  work  of  the  people 
to  a  point  where  they  need  no  help 
from  political  experts  in  casting  their  votes, 
we  have  not  yet  got  the  power  completely 
into  their  hands.  The  short,  interesting  ballot 
is  not  enough  if  the  only  names  on  that  ballot 
are  those  nominated  by  political  machines.  To 
be  sure,  the  fact  that  the  nominations  are  to 
be  exposed  to  the  searching  light  of  concen- 
trated public  scrutiny  will  compel  the  ma- 
chines to  be  deferential  to  public  opinion. 
Tammany  nominates  reputable  men  from  out- 
side its  own  ranks,  even  borrowing  them  from 
the  reformers'  ticket,  for  the  conspicuous  of- 
fices. But  even  if  the  limitations  of  demo- 
cratic government  described  in  the  previous 
chapters  were  fully  observed,  a  Tammany  Hall 
would  continue  to  be  a  necessary  part  of  the 
government  of  New  York  City.  Imagine  all  the 
power  put  in  the  hands  of  the  board  of  esti- 
mate, with  its  three  members  elected  at  large 


52         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

and  one  from  each  borough.  Each  citizen  votes 
for  four  members  only.  This  means  a  short, 
interesting  ballot  that  fulfills  all  the  require- 
ments laid  down  in  the  preceding  chapters, 
each  elective  office  playing  a  large  part  in  de- 
termining interesting  policies.  Then  imagine 
the  idea  adopted  that  is  in  effect  in  Colorado 
Springs  and  elsewhere,  of  not  only  having  no 
party  labels  on  the  ballot  but  making  every 
candidate,  when  filing  his  petition,  swear  that 
he  represents  no  political  organization  or 
club !  In  the  little  city  of  Colorado  Springs  the 
requirement  works  perfectly.  In  the  city  of 
New  York  that  plan  would  limit  the  candi- 
dates to  millionaires.  None  less  could  finance 
a  campaign  designed  to  reach  600,000  voters. 
The  expense  of  hiring  halls  in  all  parts  of  the 
city,  drawing  the  crowds  to  the  meetings,  ad- 
vertising in  circulars  or  newspapers  and  on  bill- 
boards, would,  if  this  work  were  adequately 
done,  be  enormous  —  much  greater  than  it  is 
now,  when  the  ability  of  the  machines  to  throw 
into  the  field  a  vast  standing  army  of  well- 
trained  volunteers  cuts  down  the  money  cost. 
A  candidate  could  spend  $100,000  without 
even  making  a  serious  dent  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  big  town. 


LIMIT  OF  DISTRICT-SIZE  53 

Making  the  multitude  listen,  making  them 
all  think  about  the  same  thing,  is  a  task  that 
becomes  more  difficult  the  larger  the  multi- 
tude. The  discouragement  of  candidates  and 
the  consequent  serious  limitation  of  possible 
contestants  is  not  the  most  serious  disadvan- 
tage of  big  electorates.  Suppose  all  the  politi- 
cal machines  of  New  York  City  gracefully  re- 
tired from  the  field,  leaving  all  contestants  on 
an  equal  footing.  One  candidate  or  another 
would  build  up  a  personal  machine  equipped 
by  experience  and  funds  to  win  elections  for 
him.  The  superior  effectiveness  of  such  methods 
in  a  huge  population  would  put  a  premium 
upon  evasion  of  all  laws  seeking  to  prevent  the 
existence  of  political  machines.  These  armies 
of  political  mercenaries  would  drift  from  one 
leader  to  another,  seeking  the  highest  pay,  and 
their  organized  cooperation,  formal,  informal, 
or  secret,  would  be  vital  to  the  success  of  the 
candidates.  No  candidate  could  build  up  such 
an  army  of  political  workers  at  short  notice  or 
with  genuine  volunteers  who  expected  no  re- 
ward. (The  "volunteers"  in  the  present  ma- 
chines are  really  paid  by  preference  in  political 
appointments  and  city  jobs  where  the  hours  are 
short  enough  to  permit  steady  political  work.) 


54         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

All  this  is  only  saying  that  large  electorates 
are  hard  of  hearing,  and  they  can  be  so  large 
as  to  be  almost  deaf.  This  deafness  of  a  big 
electorate  to  all  but  expert  organized  political 
noise-makers  gives  to  the  political  experts  an 
influence  which  amounts  to  virtual  control. 

To  express  it  another  way,  an  electorate 
may  be  so  large  that  it  cannot  perform  even  a 
simple  task  without  organizing  for  it.  A  com- 
mittee can  easily  do  in  half  an  hour  the  work 
that  a  convention  of  a  thousand  men  can  only 
do  in  a  stormy,  blundering  fashion  in  a  whole 
day.  In  fact,  a  convention  can  hardly  get  any- 
where except  with  the  aid  of  committees.  The 
clumsiness  of  a  convention  is  nothing  to  the 
clumsiness  of  a  hundred  thousand  men  scat- 
tered through  a  great  city;  and  if  concerted 
action  is  required  of  them,  there  must  be 
organization.  In  huge  electorates  it  will  have 
to  be  a  more  elaborate  and  costly  organization 
than  we  can  ask  the  candidates  to  construct; 
and  if  the  support  of  these  standing  armies  is 
essential  to  the  success  of  candidates,  it  follows 
logically  that  these  armies  (or  the  captains  of 
them)  will  hold  an  unassailable  monopoly  of 
the  hopeful  nominations. 

Democracy  requires  that  there  shall  be  rea- 


LIMIT  OF  DISTRICT-SIZE  55 

sonably  free  competition  for  elective  offices.  To 
give  to  any  set  of  men  power  to  exclude  va- 
rious candidates  from  the  contest  may  often 
result  in  barring  out  the  very  men  the  people 
would  like.  It  is  not  possible  to  suppress  per- 
manent political  organizations  when  they  will 
be  of  great  help  in  winning  the  great  prizes  of 
office,  but  it  is  possible  so  to  arrange  the  battle- 
ground that  there  will  not  be  enough  advan- 
tage in  permanent  political  organizations  to 
encourage  their  existence. 

Let  the  political  unit  or  district  be  not  so 
large  but  that  an  adequate  impromptu  organi- 
zation can  be  put  together  at  short  notice. 
Permanent  committees  or  political  organiza- 
tions may  then  exist  without  controlling  the 
situation,  since  the  threat  of  opposition,  if  their 
nominations  are  unsatisfactory,  will  be  truly 
serious.  In  theory,  if  the  parties  in  New  York 
City  both  nominated  unsatisfactory  men,  new 
candidates  would  spring  into  the  field  and  get 
elected,  thus  automatically  penalizing  any 
failure  of  the  old  machines  to  please  the  people. 
In  fact,  of  course,  the  mere  bigness  of  the  task 
is  enough  to  discourage  independent  candi- 
dates, and  the  existing  machines  preserve  a  safe 
monopoly  over  the  business  of  nomination  — 


56         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

oligarchy  again !  In  the  smaller  subdivisions  of 
the  city,  such  as  the  Aldermanic  and  Munici- 
pal Court  districts,  independent  nominations 
are  not  infrequent,  and  sometimes  succeed  de- 
spite the  fact  that  the  offices  are  ones  which 
do  not  naturally  secure  public  scrutiny. 

The  smaller  the  district  and  the  fewer  the 
voters  to  be  reached  by  the  candidate,  the 
weaker  is  the  grip  of  the  machine,  the  easier 
it  is  for  the  political  novice  to  succeed,  and  the 
less  is  the  advantage  of  the  political  specialist 
who  "knows  the  ropes." 

Enlarge  the  district  beyond  a  certain  point 
and  the  business  of  winning  an  election  be- 
comes a  job  for  experts  only;  and  we  get,  in 
part  at  least,  government  by  politicians  in- 
stead of  government  by  the  people. 

Accordingly  we  establish  the  Second  Limita- 
tion of  Democracy:  The  district  must  be  wieldy. 
Our  unwieldy  districts  are  as  unique  in  the  ex- 
perience of  democratic  countries  as  are  our  long 
jungle  ballots. 

Granted  then  that  New  York  City  is  too 
large  a  district,  what  the  exact  maximum  is  for 
the  voting  population  for  a  "wieldy"  district 
can  be  determined  only  by  the  test  of  prac- 
tice. Regarding  any  existing  district,  the  ques- 


LIMIT  OF  DISTRICT-SIZE  57 

tion  to  determine  is  —  For  a  visible  office  (as 
per  the  First  Limitation  of  Democracy),  do  the 
people  in  this  district  find  that  their  choice  is 
unduly  limited  by  the  difficulty  which  can- 
didates who  lack  the  support  of  standing  po- 
litical organizations  have  in  getting  a  hearing? 
Or  to  express  the  same  idea  differently  —  Can 
a  spontaneous  movement  of  public  opinion 
express  itself  without  getting  permission  from 
political  machines? 

Political  subdivisions  in  our  cities,  to  be  sure, 
have  a  bad  name,  although  in  the  excellently 
governed  cities  of  Great  Britain  the  ward  is  the 
unit  everywhere.  The  fault  with  American 
ward  politics  does  not  lie  in  the  pettiness  of  the 
ward  so  much  as  in  the  pettiness  of  the  powers 
of  ward-elected  aldermen.  Make  the  alderman 
a  big  conspicuous  office,  and  the  character  of 
ward  politics  would  be  instantly  revolutionized. 

The  ancient  minor  evils  of  log-rolling  and 
gerrymander  must  be  cured  in  other  ways 
than  by  election-at-large.  In  British  cities,  for 
example,  the  councilors  elect  about  one  third 
their  own  number  (aldermen)  to  sit  with  them. 
These  aldermen  are  elected  for  longer  terms 
than  councilors  and  in  rotation.  Having  no 
districts,  they  are  independent  of  ward  influ- 


58         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

ences  and  their  presence  in  the  council  makes 
log-rolling  awkward.  Gerrymander  in  British 
cities  is  prevented  by  having  the  ward  lines 
adjusted  by  a  remote  (parliamentary)  au- 
thority. 

Proportional  representation  is  also  offered. 
By  that  plan  the  district  or  constituency  loses 
its  boundary,  so  to  speak,  and  all  officers  are 
elected  at  large,  with  this  difference — that  the 
candidates  instead  of  being  required  to  get  a 
plurality  need  get  only  a  quota.  If  ten  offices 
were  to  be  filled  in  a  city  of  100,000  voters,  for  in- 
stance, the  quota  would  be  9091  (since  not  more 
than  ten  candidates  could  each  get  that  number) . 
To  prevent  waste  of  votes  on  candidates  who 
get  more  than  a  quota  and  on  candidates  who 
prove  hopelessly  weak,  the  preferential  ballot 
is  employed,  whereon  the  voter  marks  a  first 
choice,  a  second  choice,  etc.,  and  the  ballot,  in 
the  counting,  is  transferred  from  candidate  to 
candidate  in  accordance  with  the  voter's  indi- 
cated wish,  until  it  finds  a  resting-place.  This  is 
the  Hare  or  Ware  system  used  in  some  of  the 
British  colonies.  Its  significance  here  is  the  fact 
that  the  candidate  need  only  secure  a  quota 
instead  of  a  plurality. 


CHAPTER  VII 

FITS  AND   MISFITS 

I  HAVE  now  proved,  I  hope,  that  democracy 
is  not  a  thing  of  magic  with  infinite  capa- 
bilities, but  that  it  has  certain  limitations 
which  are  not  moral  short-comings  of,  but 
only  the  results  of  the  inevitable  clumsiness 
of,  that  great  good-hearted  and  human  giant, 
the  people.  Among  these  limitations  are  the 
following,  which  must  be  respected  to  prevent 
democracy  from  lapsing  into  oligarchy. 

1.  The  office  must  be  visible;  that  is,  it  must 
be  (a)  not  crowded  out  of  sight  by  too  many 
simultaneous  elections;  (6)  not  too  small  to  be 
seen;  (c)  not  too  uninteresting  in  character  to 
get  looked  at. 

2.  The  district  must  be  wieldy. 

In  our  American  governments,  we  have 
almost  invariably  overstepped  these  limita- 
tions, turned  democracy  into  oligarchy  and 
then  found  that  oligarchic  conditions  furnished 
to  the  ruling  class,  the  politicians,  opportuni- 
ties, too  often  utilized,  to  plunder  the  many. 


60         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

Accordingly,  let  us  take  together  a  grand 
tour  of  the  United  States  to  inspect  the  work- 
ings of  our  so-called  democratic  governments 
in  various  places  and  see  how  they  fit  (or  fail  to 
fit)  within  our  limitations. 

TOWN   GOVERNMENTS 

In  small  compact  communities  the  offices 
are  visible  and  the  district  wieldy.  The  dis- 
cussion in  earlier  chapters  regarding  the  limi- 
tations of  visibility,  however,  does  not  apply. 
The  offices  may  be  numerous  and  petty  in 
character,  but  the  fact  that  candidates  are 
personally  known  to  the  voters  contributes  a 
unique  kind  of  interest  that  makes  up  for  other 
deficiencies. 

Accordingly,  the  American  town  should  be 
a  democracy  or  else  there  must  be  other  limi- 
tations not  mentioned. 

And  is  not  the  typical  American  town  rela- 
tively an  excellent  example  of  democracy? 
There  are  politicians,  but  they  are  not  in  con- 
trol as  are  their  brothers  of  the  cities,  since 
any  citizen  can  enter  the  field  and  threaten 
their  supremacy  as  soon  as  they,  by  failure  to 
bow  to  public  opinion,  give  provocation.  Town 
opinion  rules  town  politics  surely,  promptly,  and 


61 

easily.  Notice  how  national  party  symbols 
fail  to  hold  the  people  in  line  on  local  issues,  and 
how  spontaneous,  genuine  caucuses  and  "Union 
Parties"  take  the  place  of  the  inflexible  unre- 
sponsive machinery  of  less  wieldy  districts! 
That  town  government  is  either  efficient  or 
cheap,  I  do  not  claim.  I  only  believe  that  it 
conforms  very  nearly  to  the  civic  ideals  of  the 
people  who  live  under  it  and  that  every  change 
in  those  ideals  is  reflected  with  reasonable 
accuracy  and  promptness  in  the  town  gov- 
ernment. 

GALVESTON 

This  city  (40,000  inhabitants)  was  formerly 
governed,  like  most  other  American  cities,  by 
a  mayor,  a  council  elected  by  districts,  and 
various  minor  elective  administrative  officials. 
Most  of  the  offices  were  not  visible.  The  mem- 
bers of  council  individually  had  so  little  to  do 
that  it  was  hardly  worth  the  time  of  the  people 
to  bother  about  them,  and  so  a  few  of  the  people 
who  did  bother  took  control. 

The  district,  in  the  case  of  all  the  officials 
(including  the  mayor  and  other  officials  elected 
at  large),  was  wieldy,  since  the  task  of  reach- 
ing the  voters  in  a  city  of  40,000  inhabitants 


62         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

is  not  so  colossal  as  to  suppress  impromptu 
political  movements. 

And  Galveston  was  badly  governed.  The 
power  which  the  people  delegated  to  their 
officials  was  not  all  kept  in  the  light  where  the 
people  could  easily  observe  how  it  was  used. 
When  some  misuse  of  power  became  known,  the 
chance  of  anybody  suffering  political  punish- 
ment was  slight.  All  the  politics  concerning 
such  obscure  offices  as  that  of  member  of 
council  was  beyond  the  vision  of  the  people.  It 
was  not  conspicuous  —  not  placed  on  a  pin- 
nacle of  light  where  they  all  could  see  it  and 
make  it  a  target  for  their  criticism.  Council 
politics,  or  ward  politics,  especially,  was  a 
thing  to  be  searched  out  in  the  by-ways  and 
shadows  of  the  town.  It  required  special  know- 
ledge and  acquaintance.  Who  but  a  political 
expert  would  know,  for  instance,  when,  or  over 
what  saloon,  the  little  conferences  that  really 
settled  things  would  meet?  'What  ordinary 
citizen  working  for  his  bread  and  butter  in 
competitive  industry  could  afford  to  devote  to 
this  part  of  the  unpaid  work  of  citizenship 
enough  time  and  study  to  keep  from  being 
outwitted  by  those  other  citizens  who  were 
stimulated  by  the  hope  of  tangible  pay  in 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  63 

patronage  or  boodle?  The  failure  of  Galveston 
to  make  its  elective  offices  conspicuous  had 
turned  a  large  part  of  its  politics  into  a  veri- 
table jungle  where  none  but  experts  knew  the 
trails.  And  so  a  handful  of  experts  in  citizen- 
ship, called  politicians,  ruled  Galveston.  Gal- 
veston was  an  oligarchy. 

General  disgust  among  the  people  of  Gal- 
veston with  the  council  led  to  a  change  in  the 
charter,  by  which  the  council  was  elected  at 
large  instead  of  by  wards.  "  Ward  politics  "  was 
thus  to  be  abolished.  It  was  believed  that 
election  at  large  would  wipe  out  the  field  for 
petty  manipulations,  log-rolling  and  cheap  poli- 
tics in  the  council.  The  new  plan  doubtless  did 
change  the  rules  of  the  game  and  demoralize 
the  grafters  for  a  time.  Every  such  change 
seems  to  be  a  reform  for  a  while;  since  cor- 
ruption, even  in  favorable  soil,  is  a  plant  of 
slow  growth,  dependent  on  the  continuity  of 
surrounding  conditions. 

Under  the  new  plan  - 

1.  The  offices  were  not  visible.  All  the  mem- 
bers of  council  now  appeared  on  all  the  ballots 
instead  of  singly  on  the  ballots  in  each  dis- 
trict, making  the  ballot  much  longer  and  the 
possibilities  for  blind  voting  many  times  greater 


64         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

than  before.  Each  member  was  still  only  a 
small  fraction  of  a  weak  council  and  hence 
naturally  inconspicuous. 

2.  The  district  remained  wieldy. 

In  this  new  situation  the  people  had  no  surer 
grip  than  before.  Their  work  at  the  polls  con- 
tinued to  be  poorly  lighted,  and  they  fumbled 
and  faltered  in  all  efforts  to  protect  their  in- 
terests against  the  encroachments  of  Privilege 
—  whether  it  was  the  privilege  of  a  rich  man 
to  get  a  franchise  cheaply  or  of  a  poor  man  to 
get  an  easy  job  in  the  City  Hall.  The  politi- 
cians continued  to  rule  the  town  —  three  per 
cent  of  the  people  ruling  the  remaining  ninety- 
seven  per  cent.  It  was  oligarchy  —  the  rule  of 
the  few;  unstable,  loosely  and  informally  or- 
ganized, to  be  sure,  but  still  an  oligarchy.  It 
would  have  been  an  oligarchy  just  as  surely  if 
the  "reformers"  had  been  in  control,  giving 
the  people  exactly  the  kind  of  economical  and 
efficient  government  that  was  best  for  them. 
Democracy  requires  that  the  people  themselves 
get  what  they  want,  whether  in  your  opinion 
or  mine  it  be  altogether  good  for  them  or  not. 
Effective  citizenship  —  a  very  different  thing 
from  mere  "citizenship"  —  must  be  for  the 
masses,  not  simply  for  political  specialists 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  65 

who  know  their  way  through  the  political 
jungle. 

Galveston's  mistake  was  in  trying  to  get  rid 
of  the  politicians  without  providing  any  sub- 
stitute to  do  their  work.  Of  course  the  only 
proper  substitute  is  the  people  themselves. 
But  the  people  cannot  work  in  the  dark  —  only 
political  experts  can  do  that  —  and  the  con- 
tinued and  inevitable  absence  of  the  people 
from  the  darksome  scene  of  operations  left  the 
intricate  controlling  levers  of  the  government 
unmanned,  and  liable  not  to  be  worked  at  all 
unless  the  volunteer  specialists  in  citizenship 
had  come  forward. 

In  1900  the  waters  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
were  swept  by  a  great  gale  clear  over  the  low 
levels  of  Galveston,  and  when  they  receded, 
Galveston  was  gone.  Faced  with  great  emer- 
gencies incident  to  reconstruction,  the  city 
government  found  itself  inadequate  and  in- 
efficient. It  was  never  designed  to  act  quickly 
or  do  much,  anyway.  Some  ancient  supersti- 
tion —  some  fear  of  kings  —  had  led  to  making 
the  government  purposely  inefficient  lest  it 
become  able  to  do  harm.  Thereby  it  became 
equally  unable  to  do  good.  The  emergency 
made  an  efficient  government  so  supremely 


66         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

desirable,  that  for  once  the  superstitions  gave 
way.  Galveston  adopted  the  famous  "Com- 
mission Plan,"  by  which  the  entire  govern- 
ment of  the  city  was  vested  in  a  board  of  five 
elective  officers  who  in  turn  appointed  and 
controlled  all  the  rest  of  the  officials. 

To  Americans  accustomed  to  inefficiency  in 
public  office  as  contrasted  with  private  enter- 
prise, the  story  of  the  achievements  of  this 
Commission  reads  like  a  romance.  Unhampered 
by  checks  and  balances  and  legal  red-tape,  the 
Commission  reorganized  the  city  government, 
restored  the  city  property,  planned  and 
financed  and  built  the  great  sea-wall  that  now 
bars  out  the  sea,  raised  the  ground  level  of  the 
city,  and,  withal,  reduced  the  tax-rate  and  the 
debt !  The  annual  running  expenses  of  the  city 
were  decreased  one  third.  The  new  government 
displayed  foresight,  intelligence,  and  dispatch. 
It  appeared  sensitive  to  that  public  clamor 
which  the  average  politician  considers  so  need- 
less. 

There  was  a  striking  change  in  the  attitude 
of  the  public  toward  the  doings  at  City  Hall. 
The  people  began  to  "take  an  interest"  in  their 
common  property,  to  discuss  the  doings  of  the 
Commission  on  street  corners,  to  have  "civic 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  67 

pride"  (since  there  was  now  at  last  something 
to  be  proud  of),  to  criticise  or  applaud  the  work 
of  their  servants.  They  seemed  to  have  actually 
a  proprietary  interest  in  the  government!  Amid 
this  widespread  discussion  the  influence  of  the 
politicians  of  the  town  was  swamped  and 
counted  for  only  its  true  numerical  strength. 

Now  every  American  city  has  its  spells  of 
good  government,  —  the  reactions  that  follow 
orgies  of  corruption  and  scandal,  —  and  the 
fact  that  the  new  Galveston  government  saved 
money  is  not  in  itself  significant.  The  vital 
difference  is  that  these  good  administrators  in 
Galveston,  without  building  up  personal  "ma- 
chines" or  intrenching  themselves  in  power 
by  the  usual  army-like  methods  of  political 
organization,  were  able  to  secure  reelection 
again  and  again.  They  won  favor  by  serving 
all  the  people  well.  They  did  their  work  in  the 
spot-light  of  public  scrutiny,  where  every 
citizen  could  see  and  appreciate  and  applaud. 
There  is  no  reward  sweeter  or  more  stimulating 
than  well-earned  public  applause.  Good  deeds 
under  the  old  government  were  frequent,  no 
doubt,  but  in  the  jungle  the  doer  received  no 
encouragement  or  glory. 

"By  serving  all  the  people"  —not  by  serv- 


68         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

ing  a  few  men  who  occupied  strategic  positions 
in  a  political  ambush!  In  fact,  there  was  no 
obscuring  ambush  to  afford  opportunities  for 
strategy.  The  commissioners  were  getting 
reelected,  and  by  overwhelming  majorities, 
without  any  organized  aid  save  the  support  of 
the  City  Club.  The  expense  of  reelecting  them 
was  $350  for  all  five!  When  the  people  knew 
from  their  general  information  exactly  what 
they  wanted,  why  conduct  a  big  campaign? 
Why  try  to  build  up  a  standing  organization 
of  political  workers  when  the  simple  govern- 
mental plan  left  no  work  for  it  to  do  ? 

Let  us  apply  our  two  Limitations  of  Demo- 
cracy to  the  Galveston  plan. 

1.  The  officers  are  visible  —  only  five  to 
elect,  all  playing  a  large  part  in  determining 
interesting  policies. 

2.  The  district  is  wieldy. 
Perfect  conformity! 

OTHER    COMMISSION-GOVERNED    CITIES 

There  grew  up  in  Galveston  the  custom  of 
dividing  work  among  the  members  of  the 
Commission  and  letting  each  of  the  five  special- 
ize in  the  affairs  of  one  branch  of  the  govern- 
ment. The  members  did  not  assume  executive 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  69 

charge  of  the  departments,  —  that  work  was 
done  by  hired  expert  superintendents,  —  but 
simply  became  familiar  with  the  work  by  ob- 
servation. In  fact,  the  commissioners  re- 
mained in  private  business  and  simply  gave 
a  few  hours  a  week  to  the  city  as  needed.  The 
public  soon  anticipated  the  organizing  of  the 
Commission,  and  the  division  of  the  govern- 
ment over  which  each  commissioner  would 
probably  be  given  special  oversight,  became 
a  matter  of  general  knowledge  before  the 
election. 

In  copying  the  Galveston  plan,  other  cities, 
Houston  for  instance,  made  this  division  formal 
so  that  each  commissioner  became  the  respon- 
sible active  superintendent  of  a  department, 
giving  all  his  time  to  it  and  receiving  increased 
pay  accordingly. 

The  people  thus  have  thrust  upon  them  a 
more  difficult  task  than  in  Galveston — namely, 
that  of  selecting  the  best  men  to  do  ad- 
ministrative work.  The  people  have  no  great 
relish  for  this  task,  as  is  proved  by  the  way 
in  which  they  habitually  neglect  elective  of- 
fices which  are  purely  administrative.  More- 
over, it  is  work  for  which  they  have  no  great 
ability.  The  opinions  of  20,000  voters  on  the 


70         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

question  which  of  the  candidates  is  best  fitted 
to  supervise  sewerage,  or  paving,  or  the  city's 
fiscal  operations,  are  not  valuable.  If  you  or  I 
were  engaging  an  engineer  for  a  private  con- 
tracting firm,  the  fact  that  one  candidate  for 
the  place  had  secured  10,000  votes  in  Houston 
for  a  similar  position  would  carry  small  weight 
with  us.  We  should  recognize  that  those  votes 
were  based  on  hearsay  evidence,  not  investi- 
gated for  its  accuracy  by  a  dozen  voters  out 
of  that  10,000.  We  should  recognize  that  the 
popular  support  the  candidate  secured  was 
based  rather  on  the  fact  that  he  had  satisfied 
those  voters,  that  he  represented  them,  sym- 
pathized with  them,  was  like  them,  knew  what 
policies  they  wanted.  For  his  qualifications  as 
an  engineer  we  should  prefer  the  report  of,  say, 
five  responsible  investigators. 

To  confound  these  two  separate  issues,  fit- 
ness to  represent  and  fitness  to  administer,  in- 
terferes with  both  accurate  representation  and 
efficient  administration.  Perhaps  Houston  is 
electing  to  superintend  its  public  works  a  first- 
class  engineer  who  has  no  real  intimacy  with 
the  people.  Or  perhaps  Houston  is  electing 
a  mediocre  engineer  who  has  the  gift  of  popu- 
larity and  broad  comprehension  of  the  desires 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  71 

of  the  people.  The  chance  of  getting  a  maxi- 
mum of  both  desiderata  is  remote.  The  re- 
quirement of  high  administrative  ability  in 
elective  offices  makes  it  necessary  to  confine 
nominations  to  the  kind  of  men  who  earn  large 
salaries  in  private  life  and  wear  kid  gloves. 
It  excludes  labor,  for  example,  which  is  too 
little  represented  in  the  government  of  typi- 
cal American  cities. 

Of  the  two  things,  fitness  to  represent  will 
naturally  be  the  dominant  factor  in  electing 
a  man,  for  in  that  matter  there  is  ample  ground 
for  a  debate  on  policies  that  will  actually  stir 
the  people  and  cause  them  to  divide.  It  is 
policies  that  make  real  politics,  and  the  most 
efficient  democracy  is  that  which  provides  for 
the  freest  expression  of  the  demands  of  the 
people  in  regard  to  them.  Let  each  elective 
office,  therefore,  not  only  play  a  large  part  in 
determining  interesting  policies,  but  also  be 
kept  free  of  every  other  consideration.  "When 
you  want  representation,  elect.  When  you 
want  administration,  appoint." 

The  mayor  of  Houston  was  elected  as  a 
separate  officer,  and  was  given  special  powers 
and  duties,  including  the  right  of  veto  over 
the  acts  of  the  Commission. 


72         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

Measured  by  the  requirements  of  visibility, 
this  feature  can  hardly  be  construed  as  an  im- 
provement on  the  Galveston  plan.  The  mayor's 
office  is  made  more  interesting  and  conspicu- 
ous, but  the  offices  of  the  other  four  commis- 
sioners are  made  less  so.  The  mayor  becomes 
all-important  at  the  expense  of  his  associ- 
ates, who  play  a  muclr smaller  "part  in  deter- 
mining interesting  policies"  than  in  Galveston. 

So  far  as  Houston  is  concerned,  the  elevation 
of  the  mayor  at  the  expense  of  his  associates 
has  done  no  harm  and  may  never  do  any,  for 
the  harmony  of  the  Commission  is  reported  to 
be  so  excellent  that  the  mayor's  veto  power 
has  not  been  used.  To  a  certain  extent  usage 
thus  far  has  nullified  the  error  in  the  design, 
and  the  four  commissioners  are  regarded  as 
highly  important,  and  get  ample  limelight  at 
the  election  to  protect  their  office  against 
capture  by  men  whom  the  people  really  do 
not  want. 

In  a  certain  middle-sized  Eastern  city  there 
is  on  foot  at  present  writing  a  plan  for  adopt- 
ing a  new  charter  in  which  the  Houston  error 
is  carried  to  its  logical  conclusion.  The  plan 
provides  for  five  elective  officers  —  namely,  a 
mayor  and  a  council  of  four  members.  The 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  73 

mayor  is  the  chief  executive  of  the  city,  ap- 
points all  city  employees,  draws  up  the  budget, 
and  in  general  runs  the  city.  The  council  has 
power  only  to  stand  around  and  watch  things, 
to  trim  down  the  budget,  but  not  to  increase 
it  or  revise  it,  and  to  pass  ordinances  subject 
to  the  mayor's  veto.  This  is  perilous.  There 
is  danger  that  the  mayor  will  completely 
overshadow  the  other  four,  and  that  the  latter 
will  not  count  for  enough  to  attract  the  light. 
Complete  ready-made  tickets  for  the  council 
will  then  automatically  appear  and  be  accepted 
or  rejected  in  toto,  without  individual  examina- 
tion by  the  people,  even  with  the  non-partisan 
ballot  that  is  planned;  and  with  the  makers  of 
those  tickets  the  people  will  share  control  over 
the  council.  The  plan  will  result  in  an  imper- 
fect democracy  because  the  ballot  is  four 
fifths  uninteresting.  The  people  will  control 
the  mayor,  electing  the  man  whom  they  really 
know  they  want,  whereas  the  council  will  in 
the  long  run  be  composed  of  men  whom  the 
average  voter  cannot  recall  by  name,  men  who 
get  elected  without  passing  through  the  light, 
men  of  whom  it  may  eventually  be  said  that 
they  got  elected  without  "detection."  And 
if  rascals  should  slip  into  these  offices  under 


74         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

cover  of  the  gloom,  could  the  people  be  blamed? 
Must  they  be  expected  to  see  in  the  dark  ? 

COLORADO  SPRINGS 

In  copying  the  Galveston  plan  of  govern- 
ment, Colorado  Springs  has  introduced  a  pro- 
vision in  the  charter  to  the  effect  that  every 
candidate,  before  his  petition  for  a  place  on  the 
official  non-partisan  ballot  can  be  accepted, 
must  file  a  sworn  declaration  that  he  repre- 
sents no  political  party  or  organization.  As  a 
temporary  expedient  to  break  the  grip  of  the 
old  party  machines  this  provision  was  appar- 
ently valuable,  for  the  largest  plurality  at  the 
first  election  under  the  new  charter  in  this 
normally  Republican  city  went  to  a  Democrat. 
The  permanent  desirability  of  the  measure  is 
less  certain.  It  is  interesting,  however,  as  show- 
ing the  practicability  of  unaided  democracy 
when  the  Two  Limitations  are  respected.  The 
people  of  Colorado  Springs  are  dealing  with 
their  public  servants  directly  without  calling 
for  expert  assistance.  The  candidates  make 
themselves  known  to  the  people,  each  in  his 
own  way  without  help  from  anybody  save  his 
personal  following.  The  voters  also  make  up 
their  individual  minds  and  vote  without  help. 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  75 

The  politician,  in  the  American  sense  of  that 
word,  is  a  useless  spectator  with  no  more  in- 
fluence than  any  other  citizen  of  wide  ac- 
quaintance. He  can  go  to  his  favorite  candi- 
date after  election  and  say,  "I  helped  elect  you 
—  therefore  reward  me  out  of  the  city  treas- 
ury"; but  he  cannot  say,  "I  helped  elect  you 
as  no  other  citizen  could  —  I  was  necessary  to 
you,  therefore  reward  me  for  permitting  you 
to  be  elected." 

The  difference  is  enough  to  free  city  officials 
from  the  embarrassment  of  partisan  machine 
control.  To  those  who  offer  aid  before  election, 
each  can  say,  "I  welcome  help  but  do  not  re- 
quire it  desperately,  nor  do  I  need  a  great  deal. 
I  can  afford  to  refuse  aid  from  all  but  those 
whom  I  can  pay  in  cash  from  my  own  pocket 
or  who  volunteer  unconditionally,  and  I  prefer 
to  do  so."  Such  a  statement  to  the  politicians 
under  old  conditions  would  have  foredoomed 
the  candidate  to  defeat.  The  political  world  is 
full  of  men  who  have  met  this  situation  and 
compromised  grudgingly  at  the  ultimate  ex- 
pense of  the  public,  because  nothing  else  was 
"  practical." 


76         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

BOSTON 

In  January,  1910,  Boston  put  into  effect  a 
new  charter  which  aimed  to  adapt  to  a  large 
city  the  fundamental  features  of  the  commis- 
sion plan.  The  charter  provides  for  a  very  pow- 
erful mayor  elected  for  four  years,  a  council  of 
nine  members  (weak  and  obstructive)  elected 
for  three-year  terms,  three  at  a  time,  in  ro- 
tation, and  a  school  board  (administrative)  of 
five  members  elected  one  or  two  at  a  time  for 
three-year  terms.  The  ballot  is  non-partisan, 
all  nominations  being  by  petition.  There  are 
six  places  or  less  each  year  to  be  filled  by  pop- 
ular vote  from  the  whole  city. 

Measuring  Boston  by  our  Limitations,  we 
find  that  the  offices  are  not  all  visible.  Only 
the  mayor  plays  "a  large  part  in  deciding  in- 
teresting policies." 

The  district  is  not  wieldy. 

At  present  writing  there  have  been  only  the 
first  two  elections,  and  the  plan  has  not  had 
time  to  settle  down  to  what  will  be  its  regular 
pace.  Certain  significant  facts,  however,  stood 
out  even  at  the  first  election  with  sufficient 
clearness  to  warrant  interpretation  and  a  pre- 
diction. 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  77 

There  were  four  candidates  for  mayor  who 
survived  the  rather  heavy  petition  require- 
ments, namely  Fitzgerald,  a  Democratic  ex- 
mayor,  under  whose  former  administration 
there  had  been  much  complaint  of  misgovern- 
ment;  Hibbard,  a  Republican  ex-mayor;  Stor- 
row,  the  nominee  of  a  committee  of  reformers 
representing  the  independent  good-govern- 
ment vote;  and  Taylor,  apparently  represent- 
ing no  one  but  himself  and  his  prospective 
constituents.  Taylor  was  out  of  the  race  from 
the  start.  It  was  recognized  that  his  support 
was  only  personal,  that  he  had  no  machine  at 
his  disposal  to  carry  his  message  to  the  voters, 
and  that  there  was  no  long-standing,  well- 
established  "good  will"  in  his  favor.  Hibbard 
had  been  too  rigidly  scrupulous  a  mayor  to 
win  the  admiration  and  zealous  support  of  the 
Republican  machine,  but  he  recognized  that 
his  only  hope  of  success  lay  in  getting  that  sup- 
port, and  his  newspaper  advertisements  bid 
for  it  openly  and  desperately,  in  a  manner 
that  indicated  that  he  regarded  Republican 
support  as  more  precious  than  the  good  opinion 
of  reflective  voters.  He  did  not  get  the  Re- 
publican machine  support,  though  the  Repub- 
lican politicians  found  it  more  worth  their 


78         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

while  to  be  active  than  they  had  at  first  ex- 
pected. Certainly  the  candidates  all  valued 
their  support  and  manoeuvred  for  it,  and  the 
stock  of  the  candidates  rose  and  fell  accord- 
ing to  the  rumors  of  their  success  in  these 
flirtations.  Fitzgerald  had  the  whole-hearted 
though  informal  support  of  the  Democratic 
machine,  which  he  had  richly  befriended  in 
patronage  and  favoritism  when  in  office  be- 
fore. He  was  thus  able  to  win  support  at  much 
less  expense  than  Storrow,  who  spent  $95,000 
on  his  campaign  and  gathered  almost  the  en- 
tire anti-Fitzgerald  vote.  Hibbard  and  Taylor 
ended  with  only  1800  and  600  votes  respec- 
tively. 

Storrow's  huge  expenses  are  the  fruit  of  the 
unwieldiness  of  a  district  as  large  as  Boston, 
and  show  how  the  mere  size  of  the  task  of 
winning  over  a  great  electorate  must  operate 
to  narrow  the  competition  to  a  few  men,  none 
of  whom  may  be  what  the  public  really  wants. 
In  the  future  the  political  organizations  of  long 
standing  —  namely,  the  Democratic  machine, 
the  Republican  machine,  and  the  organized  in- 
dependents, with  their  coterie  of  civic  work- 
ers and  reformers — will  hold  a  monopoly  of  the 
hopeful  nominations.  A  candidate  must  al- 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  79 

ways  have  the  support  of  at  least  one  of  them 
in  order  to  win.  If  he  can  secure  the  support  of 
two  of  them  he  will  be  almost  invincible.  To 
build  up  de  novo  an  impromptu  volunteer  or- 
ganization capable  of  winning  the  election 
against  the  old  established  organizations  is 
hardly  a  hopeful  undertaking. 

The  only  hope  of  any  such  movement  in 
Boston  now  lies  in  the  increased  probability 
of  a  division  of  the  party  strength  by  factional 
disputes  when  there  is  no  one  of  sufficient  au- 
thority to  stop  the  fighting.  Even  this  chance 
seems  on  reflection  somewhat  remote.  For 
suppose  two  candidates,  equally  strong  among 
the  Democratic  politicians,  began  to  claim 
party  support.  We  know  enough  about  politi- 
cians to  know  that  they  would  be  politic  and 
would  wait,  shrewdly  estimating  the  relative 
strength  of  the  candidates  until  one  showed 
a  lead,  whereupon  they  would  flock  to  him  with 
a  rush,  leaving  the  other  to  grow  steadily 
weaker.  Ordinary  human  desire  to  be  on  the 
winning  side  is  trifling  compared  with  that 
desire  among  politicians  whose  bread  and 
butter  depends  upon  their  being  there. 

To  believe  that  in  the  future  the  people  of 
Boston  will  not  be  sharing  their  control  over 


80         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

the  mayor  with  some  coterie  of  political  spe- 
cialists is  to  assume  that  the  politicians  will  re- 
fuse to  sell  their  support  to  the  highest  bidder, 
or  that  no  candidates  will  bid  for  such  support 
even  if  getting  it  will  contribute  greatly  to 
their  success. 

At  the  second  election  under  this  charter 
(January,  1911)  there  were  chosen  three  mem- 
bers of  the  council  and  two  members  of  the 
school  committee  —  a  short  but  uninterest- 
ing ballot  and  an  unwieldy  district.  On  the 
day  before  the  election  the  papers  were  tell- 
ing who  the  candidates  were,  in  a  style  they 
might  be  expected  to  use  in  explaining  the 
matter  to  out-of-town  visitors;  the  voters  were 
urged  to  be  sure  to  vote,  the  news  regarding 
the  campaign  occupied  a  single  half-column 
and,  despite  the  short  ballot,  tickets  were  be- 
ing advertised.  There  was  never  so  dull  a  city 
election  in  Boston.  As  in  the  first  election,  all 
the  candidates  who  were  elected  had  the  sup- 
port of  machines,  and  the  importance  of  that 
support  was  indicated  in  the  way  that  one 
candidate,  for  example,  who  had  been  obscure 
and  out  of  the  race,  became  suddenly  an  ac- 
knowledged leader  the  moment  a  certain  party 
committee  graciously  issued  its  endorsement. 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  81 

Hereafter  it  may  become  more  important 
for  a  candidate  to  get  on  that  committee's  ticket, 
or  some  other  ticket,  than  to  campaign  vigor- 
ously for  popular  favor;  and  in  just  the  ratio 
that  this  is  true  the  people  will  be  sharing 
with  a  coterie  of  ticket-makers  their  control 
over  their  government.  If  these  ticket-makers 
win  because  they  support  candidates  whom  the 
people  learn  to  like,  their  function  is  simply 
harmless  leadership.  If  they  win  because  the 
people  can't  see  in  the  gloom  and  hence  are 
forced  to  delegate  their  work  blindly  to  ex- 
perts in  citizenship,  then  the  ticket-makers 
can  exercise  discretion,  knowing  that  their  se- 
lections will  be  accepted  by  the  people  without 
examination.  And  this  power,  especially  in  the 
hands  of  political  organizations  which  any  cor- 
rupt man  can  join  and  help  to  direct,  is  a  dan- 
gerous diversion  of  a  power  that  should  remain 
entirely  with  the  people,  if  democracy  is  to  be 
complete. 

I  believe  therefore  that  Boston  will  find  that 
it  has  not  devised  a  practical  form  of  demo- 
cratic government. 


82         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

NEW   YORK   CITY 

New  York  is  governed  by  its  board  of  esti- 
mate of  eight  members,  elected  three  at  large 
and  one  from  each  of  the  five  boroughs.  There 
is  also  a  very  weak  board  of  aldermen,  elected 
singly  from  districts. 

Each  voter  in  the  city  votes  for  four  mem- 
bers of  the  board  of  estimate,  and  an  alder- 
man. 

In  respect  to  the  aldermen,  the  First  Limi- 
tation of  Democracy  is  overstepped,  —  the 
office  is  not  interesting  and  hence  not  visible. 

In  respect  to  the  board  of  estimate,  the 
Second  Limitation  is  overstepped,  —  the  dis- 
trict is  not  wieldy,  except  in  the  case  of  the 
member  from  the  borough  of  Richmond. 

The  borough  of  Richmond  consists  of  Staten 
Island,  a  small  district,  suburban  in  character, 
and  with  a  population  of  100,000.  It  is  ap- 
parently a  wieldy  district  and  thus  conforms  to 
both  Limitations.  Amid  the  bitter  political 
warfare  in  the  other  boroughs  of  New  York 
City,  this  little  district  seems  to  have  found 
much  the  same  kind  of  peace  and  stability 
that  Galveston  has.  The  political  organiza- 
tion seems  to  have  no  control  over  the  office 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  83 

of  the  borough  member  of  the  board  of  esti- 
mate, or  "borough  president"  as  he  is  called; 
and  three  times  a  man,  who  in  his  administra- 
tion of  the  borough  ignores  the  local  politi- 
cians, has  been  reflected  over  their  heads. 
There  have  never  been  charges  against  him  — 
a  delightful  contrast  to  the  experiences  of  the 
other  four  boroughs,  in  all  of  which  there  has 
been  much  scandal  and  in  two  of  which  the 
borough  presidents  have  been  removed  for 
misconduct. 

The  borough  president  of  Richmond  can- 
not claim  that  his  good  record  is  the  result  of 
superior  moral  calibre.  He  has  been  under  no 
serious  temptation.  If  politicians  come  to  him 
demanding  that  some  heeler  be  given  a  job, 
he  can  refuse,  knowing  that  if  they  attempt 
to  side-track  him  at  the  next  election  he  can 
reach  the  people  with  his  personal  appeal,  and 
even  if  not  renominated  by  his  party,  can  at 
least  completely  upset  borough  politics  by 
running  as  an  independent.  So  he  bows  the 
politicians  out,  makes  appointments  for  merit, 
wins  approval  from  his  people  because  he  is 
conspicuous  and  important  enough  to  have 
his  good  deeds  noticed,  and  announces  him- 
self a  candidate  for  reelection;  and  the  politi- 


84         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

cians,  needing  him  on  the  ticket  more  than  he 
needs  them,  hasten  to  renominate  him.  The 
officer  and  the  people  are  within  reach  of  each 
other  and  the  intermediation  of  the  politician 
is  superfluous  —  all  because  the  office  is  visible 
and  the  district  is  wieldy. 

The  other  four  boroughs  of  the  great  city, 
Bronx,  Manhattan,  Brooklyn,  and  Queens,  are 
decidedly  unwieldy.  Each  has  an  immense 
population  and  a  great  area.  For  a  single  man, 
unaided  by  a  big  ready-made  organization,  to 
tackle  the  huge  mob  and  make  it  notice  him 
is  out  of  the  question. 

Still  more  unwieldy  is  the  city  as  a  whole, 
which  comprises  the  district  of  the  three  mem- 
bers of  the  board  of  estimate  who  are  elected 
at  large — namely,  the  mayor,  comptroller, 
and  president  of  the  board  of  aldermen.  How 
the  mere  inertia  of  so  huge  an  electorate  balks 
initiative  and  limits  the  choice  of  the  people 
to  candidates  who  have  first  won  the  approval 
of  certain  self-established  coteries  of  citizens, 
is  shown  by  the  magnitude  of  the  vain  efforts 
of  Hearst.  He  attempted  to  win  the  mayoralty 
without  permission  of  the  Democrats,  the  Re- 
publicans, or  the  organized  reformers.  He 
had  newspapers  in  three  languages,  reaching 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  85 

an  enormous  clientele.  He  built  up  an  elabo- 
rate machine  and  astounded  his  rivals  by  the 
size  of  the  crowds  he  drew  to  his  mass  meetings, 
for  he  tapped  the  enthusiasm  of  the  radical  ele- 
ment and  the  hope  of  the  discontented.  Never 
has  a  man  been  so  elaborately  and  powerfully 
equipped  for  this  fray.  Yet  he  was  twice  de- 
feated by  Tammany  Hall,  which  met  him  not 
with  arguments,  but  by  a  more  thorough  can- 
vass. Thorough  canvassing  wins  elections,  for 
the  simple  human  reason  that  an  argument 
personally  delivered  face  to  face  is  more  com- 
pelling than  a  better  argument  shouted  in  the 
dim  distance.  Any  thorough  canvass  of  the 
voters  was  utterly  impossible  for  Hearst's 
impromptu  organization,  or  indeed  for  any 
organization  save  Tammany  Hall  itself,  with 
its  countless  expert  vote-getters  to  whom  this 
work  means  bread  and  butter.  The  larger  the 
electorate,  the  greater  the  advantage  of  a 
disciplined  political  army  and  the  greater  the 
advantage  of  an  organization  like  Tammany 
Hall,  which  does  not  scruple  to  pay  its  soldiers 
out  of  the  city  treasury. 


86         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

COMMISSION   GOVERNMENT   IN   LARGE   CITIES 

Several  large  cities,  for  example,  Pittsburg, 
Baltimore,  Cincinnati,  and  Buffalo,  are  dis- 
cussing the  adoption  of  the  Galveston  commis- 
sion form  of  government.  New  York  City 
shows  what  the  results  would  be,  for  its  board 
of  estimate  is  very  similar  to  a  commission. 
Applied  to  large  cities,  the  commission  plan 
would  result  in  a  short  interesting  ballot,  but 
the  Second  Limitation  of  Democracy — wieldy 
districts — would  be  exceeded,  and  political  ma- 
chines would  to  some  extent  continue  to  share 
in  the  control  of  the  government. 

CHICAGO 

Chicago  has  a  mayor,  many  minor  elective 
officers,  and  a  board  of  aldermen  elected  singly 
from  wards.  The  ballot  is  very  long  and  mostly 
uninteresting,  and  the  districts  of  most  of  the 
officers  are  unwieldy.  The  aldermen,  contrary 
to  general  American  custom,  have  large  powers, 
and  this  has  made  possible  an  interesting  de- 
velopment in  local  politics.  Some  years  ago 
the  Municipal  Voters'  League,  consisting  essen- 
tially of  a  half-dozen  men  and  some  money, 
started  to  improve  what  then  was  a  notori- 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  87 

ously  corrupt  board  of  aldermen.  By  concen- 
trating their  efforts  on  this  body  they  made  it 
artificially  conspicuous,  until  the  name  of  the 
alderman  stood  out  rather  prominently  on  the 
long  ballot  before  the  average  voter,  instead  of 
being  lost  in  the  shuffle  as  before.  This  con- 
siderably negatived  the  peril  of  the  long  ballot 
so  far  as  the  office  of  alderman  was  concerned; 
and  as  the  office  played  a  large  part  in  deter- 
mining interesting  policies  and  the  district  was 
wieldy,  the  effect  of  full  conformity  to  our 
Two  Limitations  was  obtained.  The  Municipal 
Voters'  League  did  not  nominate  candidates, 
but  confined  its  efforts  to  maintaining  the 
well-aimed  searchlight  which  prevented  the 
aldermen  from  getting  lost  in  the  shadowy 
jungle  of  the  huge  Chicago  ballot. 

Thereupon  democracy  began  to  reveal  itself, 
incidentally  demonstrating  that  when  the 
people  get  what  they  want,  what  they  want 
proves  to  be  better  government  than  the  poli- 
ticians usually  care  to  give  them.  Chicago 
began  to  see  the  spectacle  of  independent  can- 
didates for  the  board  of  aldermen  appearing 
in  various  wards  and  winning.  These  inde- 
pendent candidates  could  muster  a  few  friends, 
improvise  a  private  electioneering  organiza- 


88         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

tion  competent  to  cover  the  little  district,  get 
credit  before  the  people  for  superior  merit 
(thanks  to  the  illumination  provided  by  the 
Voters'  League),  and  gather  in  the  votes.  When 
there  was  no  independent  nomination,  the  fear 
that  there  might  be  one  if  the  party  nomina- 
tions were  not  satisfactory  was  a  well-founded 
fear  and  helped  to  put  the  parties  on  their  good 
behavior.  Moreover,  if  one  party  nominated  a 
better  candidate  for  alderman  than  the  other 
party,  it  gained  votes,  whereas  in  the  old  days 
of  gloom  nobody  would  have  noticed.  The 
wieldiness  of  the  district  prevented  the  parties 
from  establishing  a  defiant  monopoly  by  com- 
bination ;  for  both  parties  to  make  bad  nomina- 
tions was  to  invite  an  independent  nomination 
that  could  defeat  them  both.  (Note  that  there 
was  no  such  danger  in  the  case  of  offices  elected 
at  large  from  the  "unwieldy"  city!) 

Year  after  year  the  board  of  aldermen  in 
this  environment  showed  steady  improvement. 
The  "gray  wolves,"  who  had  been  an  appar- 
ently unassailable  majority  in  the  board, 
dropped  out  and  stayed  out  and  were  re- 
placed by  men  who,  for  instance,  could  be 
safely  trusted  to  represent  the  people  in  trac- 
tion matters.  "Dropped  out  and  stayed  out" 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  89 

—  that's  the  significant  thing!  Usually  when 
reformers,  seizing  the  government  temporarily 
from  the  politicians,  clean  up  a  board  of  al- 
dermen, they  do  it  all  at  once.  Then  they 
see  their  work  all  undone  at  the  next  election, 
when  their  unnatural  spasm  of  volunteer  ef- 
fort, which  for  a  moment  had  overbalanced  the 
paid  efforts  of  the  opposing  professionals,  re- 
lapses to  the  normal.  But  here  is  a  board  of 
aldermen  that  gets  clean  and  stays  so,  as  Gal- 
veston  did,  for  example;  and  not  through  the 
widespread  political  organization  of  the  people, 
but  through  providing  an  environment  where- 
in the  people,  without  organizing  and  thereby 
delegating  discretion  to  a  few,  could  deal  di- 
rectly with  their  servants.  Chicago,  so  far  as 
the  aldermen  are  concerned,  has  a  democratic 
government,  and  the  benefits  of  democracy,  of 
which  better  government  is  one,  will  continue 
to  accrue  so  long  as  the  artificial  light  is  kept 
lighted.  If  Chicago  could  obtain  a  charter 
giving  to  the  board  of  aldermen  the  right  to 
appoint  and  control  all  other  city  officials,  a 
short  interesting  ballot  would  replace  the  long 
stupid  one  and  the  Municipal  Voters'  League 
would  find  its  faithful  lamp  made  needless  by 
a  flood  of  natural  sunlight. 


90         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

The  success  of  the  Municipal  Voters'  League 
in  Chicago  has  changed  the  direction  of  re- 
form efforts  in  cities  all  over  the  country,  and 
the  old  idea  of  forming  new  parties  to  fight  for 
civic  improvement  has,  in  consequence,  been 
largely  abandoned.  Imitations  of  the  Munici- 
pal Voters'  League  in  other  places  have  often 
had  indifferent  success  along  the  lines  of  the 
Chicago  campaign.  They  can  usually  point 
to  important  achievements  in  other  fields,  but 
none  of  these  voters'  leagues,  I  think,  can  say 
honestly  that  they  have  brought  about  per- 
manent reform  in  the  city  council.  Their  dif- 
ficulty lies  in  the  fact  that  the  legislative  bodies 
in  most  American  cities  are  unimportant  in 
their  powers  and  unduly  large  in  their  member- 
ship. Often  they  are  divided  into  two  houses, 
on  the  well-disproved  theory  that  if  you  make 
action  of  any  kind  awkward,  the  grafters  will 
get  tired  of  trying  to  put  through  their  game. 
Membership  in  these  councils  is  no  honor,  be- 
cause it  involves  so  small  a  share  of  the  power. 
The  members  do  not  play  a  "large  part  in 
determining  interesting  policies,"  as  in  Chi- 
cago. So  when  the  reformer  in  Philadelphia 
rushes  into  the  newspaper  offices  with  an  ac- 
cusation against  Alderman  Dennis,  the  editor, 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  91 

instead  of  giving  it  front-page  headlines  as 
would  his  Chicago  confrere,  shakes  his  head 
in  a  bored  fashion,  tucks  the  item  away  on  a 
back  page,  and  neglects  to  follow  it  up.  He 
knows  that  the  people  will  not  get  stirred  up 
about  so  insignificant  and  obscure  a  public 
official  —  that  they  will  not  read  any  story  of 
municipal  scandal  unless  it  touches  some  con- 
spicuous personage,  such  as  the  mayor.  A 
voters'  league  can  compensate  somewhat  for 
the  difficulties  of  invisibility  by  turning  on  the 
light;  but  to  illumine  a  thing  will  not  neces- 
sarily make  the  people  stare;  the  thing  must 
be  interesting  in  itself.  Except  in  cities  where 
aldermen  are  individually  powerful,  the  Voters' 
League  recipe  for  putting  the  people  in  control 
of  politics  will  not  work. 

THE   BRITISH   CITIES 

The  city  governments  of  England  and  Scot- 
land are  the  admiration  of  the  world.  They  are 
intelligent,  progressive,  and  economical.  Ward 
politicians  and  reformers  are  both  conspicu- 
ous by  their  absence.  Yet  to  a  political  grafter 
of  our  country  the  opportunities  would  seem 
ideal.  The  British  municipality  is  run  by  the 
council,  acting  through  committees.  There 


92         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

is  considerable  antiquated  and  outgrown  red- 
tape,  and  the  property  interests  in  the  House 
of  Lords  often  interfere  unreasonably  with 
city  progress.  In  some  cities  the  municipal 
operation  of  public  utilities  —  gas  works,  street 
cars,  etc.  —  is  so  extended  that  one  tenth  of  the 
laboring  population  is  on  the  city  pay-rolls,with 
none  of  the  civil-service-examination  restric- 
tions that  we  should  think  vital  in  such  a  situa- 
tion, to  check  "patronage."  The  development 
of  wholesale  organized  corruption  would  seem 
to  be  inevitable  in  such  an  environment.  Its 
absence  is  not  to  be  explained  by  any  superior 
civic  spirit  in  the  British  public,  for  before 
the  cities  were  organized  under  the  present 
act  relating  to  municipal  corporations,  corrup- 
tion in  their  governments  was  widespread  and 
quite  equal  in  flagrancy  to  anything  we  have 
ever  had  in  the  United  States.  The  expla- 
nation is  seen  when  you  ride  down  to  business 
on  the  tramway  on  a  morning  following  a 
meeting  of  the  city  council.  The  doings  of  the 
council  are  spread  out  in  detail  in  the  morning 
paper,  the  editorials  review  the  proceedings, 
the  people  are  chatting  on  the  subject,  each 
citizen  knows  what  the  councilmen  from  his 
ward  did,  and  criticism  is  pointed  and  severe. 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  93 

X 

Everybody  in  town  seems  dissatisfied  and  the 
councilmen  will  know  it.  This  is  a  phenome- 
non that  also  reveals  itself  in  Des  Moines  and 
other  cities  in  our  country  under  the  commis- 
sion plan,  and  it  sometimes  gives  to  a  casual 
observer  the  impression  that  the  plan  of  gov- 
ernment is  anything  but  satisfactory  to  the 
people.  But  this  criticism,  on  closer  study,  is 
found  to  be  over  matters  an  American  would 
usually  regard  as  trifles  —  matters  which  he 
never  debates  because  so  many  larger  affairs 
usually  need  fixing  first.  They  are  matters 
which  in  typical  American  towns  are  never 
looked  into  by  the  people  at  all.  I  have  seen 
a  city  council  in  England  bitterly  denounced 
in  an  editorial  because  it  had  made  an  archi- 
tect stick  unreasonably  close  to  specifications! 

The  existence  of  this  ready  and  bitter  criti- 
cism is  not  a  sign  of  disease,  but  a  sign  of  health. 

The  council  dares  not  differ  with  public 
opinion.  The  lash  is  always  busy.  The  mem- 
bers must  explain  themselves  at  every  turn. 
The  people  not  only  have  the  right  to  over- 
see the  work  of  their  representatives,  but  they 
actually  are  on  deck  overseeing  it.  A  British 
council  would  face  a  hurricane  of  public  wrath 
if  it  did  some  things  which  an  American  city 


94         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

council  could  do  with  impunity.  That  differ- 
ence is  sufficient  to  account  for  the  relative 
superiority  of  the  British  municipality.  How 
was  it  brought  about?  By  some  great  stirring 
up  of  the  conscience  of  the  people?  Are  the 
British  citizens,  by  reason  of  being  conscious 
taxpayers  or  for  some  other  cause,  more  alert 
on  civic  matters  than  our  people  are?  No. 
Remember  that  simile  in  the  first  chapter  — 
the  stream  and  the  water-mill  ?  The  British 
water-mill  works  so  nicely,  not  because  the 
stream  is  stronger,  but  because  the  mill  turns 
more  easily,  its  gears  being  properly  adjusted 
to  the  energy  available. 

The  mechanism  by  which  the  British  voter 
controls  his  city  government  is  a  ballot  about 
the  size  of  a  post-card.  It  elects  the  member 
of  council  from  his  ward.  There  are  two 
names,  or  three,  on  it;  the  voter  selects  one. 
To  make  up  his  mind  on  that  simple  choice 
is  the  whole  work  of  the  voter  in  the  cam- 
paign and  on  election  day.  The  chance  of  his 
selecting  the  candidate  who  really  best  repre- 
sents his  wishes  is  excellent  —  certainly  much 
better  than  that  of  an  American  voter  who  is 
trying  to  make  wise  selections  for  thirty  of- 
fices at  one  time !  The  British  council  chooses 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  95 

the  aldermen  (who  sit  in  the  council),  the 
mayor,  whose  duties  are  mostly  ornamental, 
and  all  other  city  officers.  The  councilmen 
simply  dictate  policies  for  paid  superintend- 
ents to  carry  out.  They  do  not  themselves 
receive  salaries  and  they  give  only  their  spare 
time  to  the  city.  The  service  does  not  mean 
the  abandonment  of  private  careers.  The  wards 
are  small,  and  candidates  can  easily  get  in 
personal  touch  with  every  voter.  The  office  is 
a  visible  and  debatable  office,  since  it  has  "a 
large  part  in  determining  interesting  policies," 
and  this  fact  leads  to  fierce  campaign  discus- 
sions. No  candidate  could  hope  for  success  if 
he  did  not  permit  questions  to  be  publicly  ad- 
dressed to  him  at  the  conclusion  of  his  speeches, 
and  this  "heckling"  does  much  to  provide  a 
basis  for  clear  opinions  among  the  voters. 

The  phenomenon  of  political  peace  when 
things  are  going  right  is  also  noticeable  here, 
for  about  one  third  of  the  time  there  is  "no 
contest,"  which  means  either  that  at  the  expira- 
tion of  his  term  no  one  cares  to  try  to  prevent 
the  incumbent  from  remaining  in  office  for  an- 
other three  years,  or  that  only  one  candidate 
has  asked  to  have  his  name  printed  on  the  of- 
ficial ballot.  Councilmen  who  do  well  for  one 


96         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

or  more  terms  and  are  ready  to  serve  again, 
are  so  sure  to  be  reflected  that  it  is  useless  for 
new  candidates  to  come  forward.  Often  coun- 
cil members  serve  for  decades. 

This  is  good  government,  and  it  results  from 
having  a  form  of  government  which  the  people 
readily  control.  The  British  city  is  a  demo- 
cracy. The  Two  Limitations  are  respected:  — 

1.  The  office  is  visible. 

2.  The  district  is  wieldy. 

THE  GOVERNMENT  OF  COUNTIES 

The  application  of  the  Limitations  to  county 
government  brings  us  face  to  face  with  a  new 
difficulty:  all  the  offices  are  practically  un- 
debatable.  There  may  be  a  division  of  opin- 
ion as  to  which  candidate  ought  to  have  the 
place  and  its  salary,  but  that  is  not  a  subject 
of  sufficient  import  to  make  the  people  take 
note  of  the  matter  and  study  it  carefully  enough 
to  develop  clear  opinions.  To  county  positions 
men  can  be,  and  frequently  are,  elected  whom 
the  people  would  not  think  of  choosing  if  the 
facts  were  clearly  and  prominently  brought 
to  their  attention.  Men  who  have  given  good 
service  are  displaced  without  justice  or  re- 
cognition, and  others  whose  service  has  been 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  97 

inferior  are  retained.  There  is  little  to  en- 
courage good  behavior  in  office,  and  inefficiency 
is  common. 

All  this  holds  true  to  a  larger  extent  in  big 
counties  than  in  little  ones.  A  small,  compact, 
rural  county  partakes  largely  of  village  char- 
acteristics, and  under  these  circumstances  it 
will  be  found  that  not  only  is  county  politics 
a  lively  scramble  for  jobs,  but  the  people  are 
on  hand  to  control  it  according  to  their  own 
liking.  When  the  people  know  each  other  and 
do  not  have  to  be  educated  to  an  acquaintance 
with  the  relative  merits  of  the  candidates,  the 
long  uninteresting  ballot  does  not  matter. 
Large  counties  and  counties  that  include 
cities,  on  the  other  hand,  are,  and  always 
will  be,  neglected  by  the  people  —  a  condition 
that  is  undemocratic  as  well  as  dangerous. 

Concentrating  the  power  of  the  county, 
consolidating  the  little  offices,  or  creating  a 
compact  and  powerful  board  of  county  super- 
visors to  appoint  the  rest  of  the  officers,  is  the 
easiest  way  to  approach  to  conformity  with 
the  Two  Limitations.  In  many  counties  where 
the  people  now  pay  no  attention  to  the  county 
government  this  treatment  would  be  sufficient 
to  throw  the  officialdom  up  into  the  limelight, 


98         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

where  the  people  would  see  and  criticise  and 
control  it.  The  biggest  counties,  however, 
would  not  respond.  All  the  powers  of  the  county, 
even  if  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a  single 
official,  are  not  enough  to  cause  a  big  electo- 
rate to  bestir  itself  to  select  the  best  man.  The 
absence  of  anything  truly  political  or  policy- 
determining  in  the  office  would  make  it  invis- 
ible, and  the  people  would  fail  to  control. 

I  believe  that  we  shall  ultimately  find  our 
way  out  of  the  county  problem,  not  by  invent- 
ing a  short-ballot  county  with  a  responsible 
chief  executive,  but  by  gradually  abolishing 
the  county  as  an  electoral  unit.  Any  work 
performed  on  a  small  scale  is  usually  rela- 
tively inefficient,  and  many  county  functions, 
such  as  the  care  of  the  insane  and  the  poor, 
can  be  better  administered  on  a  large  scale  by 
the  state.  The  slipshod  methods  of  the  typical 
county  clerk  cannot  be  tolerated  forever,  and 
the  desirability  of  uniform  methods  through- 
out the  state  will  bring  these  officers  under 
central  responsible  control.  Sheriffs  may  be 
replaced  by  officers  of  a  state  police  enforcing 
the  state  laws;  we  cannot  always  tolerate  the 
local  nullification  of  statutes  by  leaving  them 
to  be  enforced  by  independent,  and  therefore 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  99 

insubordinate,  local  elective  officers.  The  con- 
stant speeding  up  of  our  means  of  communica- 
tion is  making  our  states  steadily  smaller,  and 
changes  of  this  sort  are  becoming  easier  as  well 
as  more  desirable.  Another  way  to  get  rid  of  at 
least  part  of  this  county  problem  is  to  extend 
the  plan  used,  for  instance,  in  Port  Huron, 
Michigan,  where  the  city  officials  appoint  the 
local  delegation  to  the  board  of  supervisors. 

To  politicians  who  play  their  little  hide-and- 
seek  games  in  the  county  underbrush,  such  a 
mowing  down  may  seem  a  catastrophe.  The 
people,  hi  shop  and  factory  and  field,  'will 
never  miss  the  county  or  regret  its  passing. 

JUDICIAL  OFFICERS 

The  question  whether  judges  should  be 
elected  or  appointed  is  not  to  be  determined 
by  your  opinion  or  mine  as  to  whether  such 
positions  are  properly  political.  It  should  be 
settled  by  the  answer  to  the  question,  "Do 
the  people  want  to  select  their  judges?"  That 
answer  is  not  to  be  obtained  by  a  referendum. 
The  opinion  of  the  theorizing  voter  is  often  a 
rather  hazy  thing.  The  answer  is  obtained  by 
asking,  "If  the  judicial  elections  were  on 
separate  days  from  other  elections,  would  the 


100       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

bulk  of  the  people  study  the  relative  merits  of 
the  candidates  and  go  to  the  polls  and  make  the 
selection?  Or  would  the  judicial  election  be 
ignored  by  all  save  a  minority  of  the  people?" 
I  believe  that  outside  of  village  justices  the 
people  would  usually  ignore  the  judges  and 
allow  bosses  to  put  into  office  any  reasonably 
respectable  candidate.  Except  in  some  pic- 
turesque emergency,  the  office  does  not  in- 
terest the  people  enough  to  make  them  come 
out  and  be  counted. 

The  proponents  of  an  appointive  judiciary 
point  to  actual  results.  They  can  show  that 
New  Jersey,  with  its  appointed  judges,  has 
a  higher  and  abler  class  of  men  on  the  bench 
than  New  York,  where  judicial  nominations 
are  commonly  said  to  be  purchasable  from 
Tammany  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars  apiece.  The  Federal  judiciary  is  con- 
sidered by  lawyers  to  be  superior  in  honesty 
and  ability  to  the  elected  judiciary  of  most 
of  the  states,  despite  the  modesty  of  the  Federal 
salaries. 

But  there  is  wide  complaint  that  the  ap- 
pointed judges  are  habitually  reactionary  and 
lag  behind  the  spirit  of  the  times.  Things  which 
seemed  just  yesterday  are  counted  unjust 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  101 

to-day.  So  much  of  our  law  is  judge-made  that 
a  demand  that  the  bench  shall  reflect  the  tem- 
per of  the  people  so  far  as  it  can  without  stretch- 
ing the  statutes,  is  reasonable.  That,  however, 
does  not  prove  that  popular  election  will  ac- 
complish it.  Making  judges  elective  is  not 
enough  to  make  the  people  really  choose  the 
judges,  and  wherever  experience  establishes  it 
as  a  fact  that  the  populace  does  not  take  an  ac- 
tive normal  interest  in  the  dull  debates  between 
the  supporters  of  rival  judiciary  candidates, 
there  is  no  choice  but  to  make  the  judges  ap- 
pointive. To  leave  the  selection  to  an  uninter- 
ested, and  hence  unobserving,  people  is  to 
leave  it  unguarded.  It  will  then  remain  immune 
from  spoliation  only  so  long  as  the  corrupt  men 
among  the  people  overlook  the  opportunity. 

The  right  road  to  a  judiciary  that  will  be 
satisfactory  to  everybody  is  to  improve  the 
legislatures.  Legislatures  that  are  more  accu- 
rately representative  than  those  of  to-day  will 
make  laws  that  will  less  often  oblige  the  judges 
to  hand  down  unpopular  decisions.  A  reduc- 
tion in  the  number  of  occasions  for  complaint 
will  ultimately,  I  think,  take  judiciary  posi- 
tions far  away  from  politics  and  popular  agi- 
tation. 


102       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

STATE   LEGISLATURES 

State  legislatures  play  a  large  part  in  deciding 
interesting  policies,  but  state  legislators  indi- 
vidually play  a  very  small  part  in  deciding 
them.  Great  as  is  the  power  of  the  whole  legis- 
lature, it  is  successfully  subdivided  to  extinc- 
tion among  an  unduly  large  number  of  mem- 
bers. The  best  brain*  of  the  state  are  not  in 
the  legislatures,  and  will  not  go  there  when 
they  can.  The  governorship  will  attract  the 
ajblest  men  at  great  personal  sacrifice,  but  the 
offer  of  a  seat  among  the  law-makers  will  not 
for  a  moment  tempt  them  from  their  private 
careers.  The  legislatures  are  full  of  beardless 
lawyers  to  whom  the  salary,  small  as  it  is,  is 
important  while  their  private  practice  is  getting 
started.  To  be  a  legislator  is  not  the  ultimate 
goal  of  their  careers,  but  a  pot-boiler  of  the 
early  stages.  Even  the  public  leaders,  fight- 
ing for  popular  principles,  often  prefer  not  to 
accept  a  legislative  nomination,  but  to  do  their 
work  in  getting  desirable  laws  enacted,  from 
outside.  Often  a  party  committee  will  search 
to  find  a  desirable  man  who  is  willing  to  ac- 
cept the  post ;  for  it  is  no  light  thing  for  a  man 
of  ability  to  halt  his  private  progress  to  take 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  103 

a  public  office  in  which  there  is  so  little  private 
satisfaction  or  public  recognition.  Men  will 
take  an  office  in  which  they  anticipate  no 
glory,  if  they  can  really  feel  that  what  they  do 
there  serves  their  fellow  men,  but  they  find  few 
such  opportunities  in  a  state  legislature.  The 
power  is  so  slight!  An  assemblyman  in  New 
York,  for  example,  is  only  one  one  hundred  and 
fiftieth  of  one  hah*  of  a  legislature  that  is 
hedged  in  by  elaborate  constitutional  restric- 
tions and  subject  to  the  governor's  veto. 
No  one  can  blame  him  if  he  returns  to  his  con- 
stituents with  none  of  his  purposes  achieved. 
His  powers  are  negative  rather  than  positive, 
and  hence  he  cannot  win  public  attention  be- 
cause his  position  is  uninteresting. 

I  once  asked  several  hundred  voters  in 
Brooklyn  on  the  day  after  election  day  if  they 
knew  the  names  of  the  candidates  for  assem- 
blymen in  their  district,  —  the  most  independ- 
ent district  in  the  state,  —  and  of  those  who 
were  willing  to  reveal  their  ignorance,  only 
sixteen  per  cent  could  give  the  names  of  both 
candidates.  This  was  in  a  year  when  wide 
agitation  had  brought  the  legislature  into 
unusual  prominence.  I  am  certain  that  most 
of  the  voters  had  opinions  to  express  on  the 


104       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

issue  of  "Direct  Nominations,"  for  which 
Governor  Hughes  had  been  fighting;  but  in 
voting  without  knowing  the  attitude  of  their 
own  assemblymen  on  the  subject  they  were 
certainly  not  expressing  these  opinions.  The 
people  in  many  cases  must  have  been  voting 
against  the  thing  they  wanted  to  support. 
The  legislature,  I  repeat,  determines  interest- 
ing policies,  but  the  individual  legislator  does 
not  play  a  large  part  therein  and  the  First 
Limitation  of  Democracy  is  exceeded;  the 
office  is  not  visible. 

Now,  legislators  cannot  be  made  appointive. 
To  leave  them  elective  and  diminish  their  im- 
portance by  providing  other  ways  of  law- 
making,  such  as  the  initiative  and  referendum, 
is  to  divert  what  little  light  now  shines  upon 
them,  and,  if  the  logic  of  the  preceding  chap- 
ters is  accurate,  such  movements  are  in  the 
wrong  direction,  useful  though  they  may  be 
as  expedients  to  meet  present  conditions. 

A  better  diagnosis  of  the  failure  of  legisla- 
tures to  satisfy  public  opinion  may  be  based 
on  that  symptom  in  Brooklyn,  where  the 
people  were  thinking  one  way  and  voting  an- 
other. "Delegated  government,"  or  represent  - 
ative  government,  we  are  being  told,  has 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  105 

broken  down  in  this  country,  and  we  are  go- 
ing to  progress  to  better  things  by  means  of 
democratic  substitutes  of  which  the  chief  is 
the  referendum.  This  is  much  the  same  reason- 
ing as  that  which  induces  New  York  to  take  the 
franchise-granting  power  away  from  the  New 
York  City  aldermen  and  give  it  to  the  board 
of  estimate,  because  the  aldermen  have  been 
untrustworthy  a,nd  the  board  of  estimate  is 
more  honest.  As  -an  expedient  —  good  enough. 
But  if  the  aldermen  cannot  be  trusted  with 
franchises,  can  they  be  trusted  with  anything 
else?  Should  they  not  either  be  made  trust- 
worthy or  be  abolished? 

In  the  case  of  legislative  representatives, 
tucking  them  off  in  a  hole  and  doing  our  busi- 
ness some  other  way  may  be  expedient  for  the 
time,  but  it  is  not  an  end  of  the  problem  un- 
less we  are  intending  to  do  all  our  business  the 
new  way.  And  we  are  not.  We  shall  always 
need  legislatures  and  shall  always  have  to  make 
use  of  them  to  execute  the  details  of  our  com- 
mands in  the  spirit  of  our  mandate.  The  real 
answer  to  present  legislative  disobedience  to 
the  desires  of  the  people  is  to  make  legislators 
responsive  to  popular  control,  and  that  is  a 
mere  matter  of  adjusting  the  machinery  of 


106       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

control  so  that  when  the  people  have  a  wish, 
it  will  be  to  the  interest  of  legislators  to  obey 
and  obey  quickly. 

At  present  the  legislator  has  no  motive  to 
inquire,  "Will  my  vote  on  this  measure  please 
my  constituents?"  for  his  constituents  will 
not  even  notice  how  he  voted,  although  they 
may  be  interested  in  the  measure.  How  differ- 
ent is  the  governor's  position!  His  decision 
will  set  a  million  voters  talking,  and  his 
strength  with  the  people  fluctuates  every  time 
he  signs  or  vetoes  a  bill  which  interests  them. 
The  voters  constantly  stand  at  the  governor's 
elbow,  overseeing  his  work,  prodding,  sug- 
gesting, criticising,  applauding,  jeering  or 
demanding  —  and,  on  election  day,  voting ! 
And  thereby  depends  much  that  is  important 
to  the  governor  —  not  merely  continuance  in 
office,  but  vindication,  honor,  satisfaction,  a 
political  career,  all  that  is  involved  in  conspic- 
uous success.  The  rewards  for  serving  the 
people  to  their  satisfaction  are  sweet  and  the 
penalties  for  bad  service  are  bitter  —  for  a 
governor. 

If  we  could  get  our  legislative  representa- 
tives into  a  similar  environment  we  should 
have  less  to  complain  of.  Theoretically  the 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  107 

legislator  who  votes  the  unpopular  way  gets 
punished,  as  the  governor  does.  Practically 
he  does  not  suffer  at  all.  The  typical  voter 
cheers  on  the  progress  of  a  popular  measure 
at  the  Capitol,  damns  the  governor  who  op- 
poses it,  but  has  nothing  to  say,  even  on  the 
ballot  on  election  day,  in  derogation  of  the 
obscure  legislative  representatives  who  also 
oppose  it.  This  comparative  immunity  from 
popular  disapproval  makes  defiance  of  popular 
desires  easy  for  our  legislatures,  and  consti- 
tutes an  unlighted  environment  so  unhealthy 
as  to  account  fully  for  a  "failure  of  represent- 
ative government."  Of  course  it  fails !  Repre- 
sentative government  in  our  states  has  no- 
where been  tried  as  yet  under  conditions  which 
give  it  a  ghost  of  a  show  for  success! 

Now  suppose  we  go  in  imagination  to  the 
opposite  extreme  with  our  legislatures  and 
increase  the  importance  of  the  individual  mem- 
bers until  they  tower  up  into  public  view  as 
governors  do  and  become  correspondingly 
sensitive!  That  would  mean  reducing  the 
total  number  of  members  to,  say,  thirty,  in  a 
large  state  like  New  York  or  ten  in  a  little  state 
like  Maryland.  It  would  mean  also  an  end 
of  the  tangle-foot  double-chamber  plan,  and 


108       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

the  members  would  sit  as  a  single  body,  as  a 
constitutional  convention  does,  with  the  abil- 
ity to  act  swiftly  for  good  or  ill.  Remove  also 
the  elaborate  limitations  of  the  state  constitu- 
tion, leaving  only  the  simplest  outlines  so  that 
the  courts  would  not  have  to  be  incessantly 
throwing  statutes  into  the  waste-basket.  Then  to 
be  a  legislator  would  be  a  big  honor !  The  people 
would  be  up  on  tiptoe  to  see  that  the  candidates 
suited  them.  Newspapers,  instead  of  editori- 
ally condemning  the  corruption  of  the  legisla- 
ture in  the  broad  general  terms  which  now  hit 
nobody,  would  be  talking  about  Representa- 
tive Smith's  folly  in  trying  to  defeat  this  bill 
and  Representative  Jones's  continued  stu- 
pidity in  urging  that  one;  while  the  mere  sus- 
picion of  dishonorable  conduct  by  any  repre- 
sentative would  start  mass  meetings  all  over 
his  district. 

Of  course,  the  reduction  in  size  of  the  legis- 
lature must  take  into  account  the  necessity 
of  keeping  the  districts  wieldy.  How  much  too 
far  we  should  be  going  in  cutting  the  New 
York  State  legislature  to  thirty  members  and 
one  house,  I  do  not  know.  But  we  ought  to  go 
far  enough  in  that  direction  to  attract  to  each 
member  such  a  glare  of  natural  public  scrutiny 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  109 

as  will  make  it  inevitable  that  the  people  will 
see  what  they  are  doing  on  election  day.  To  go 
less  far  is  unsafe,  as  experience  shows  us.  To 
go  too  far  is  not  so  perilous  as  it  looks.  Govern- 
ment in  the  light  is  safer  than  government  in 
the  dark.  And  as  only  in  the  light  can  the  people 
see  to  control  their  government,  government 
in  the  light  alone  is  popular  government. 

THE   STATE  ADMINISTRATION 

In  New  York  State  forty-nine  officials,  with 
annual  salaries  of  four  thousand  to  fifteen  thou- 
sand dollars,  are  subject  to  the  appointment 
of  the  governor.  There  are  in  addition  (be- 
sides the  lieutenant-governor)  five  minor  elec- 
tive officers,  with  salaries  of  five  thousand 
dollars  a  year  —  namely,  secretary  of  state, 
comptroller,  state  treasurer,  attorney-general, 
and  state  engineer-and-surveyor.  Several  of 
the  appointed  officers  are  more  important 
than  all  these  elective  ones  put  together.  To 
make  them  all  appointive  would  not  add  ten 
per  cent  to  the  governor's  power.  When  the 
legislature  in  1908  passed  the  bill  which  created 
the  appointive  Public  Service  Commissions, 
it  gave  to  the  governor  a  greater  addition 
of  power  than  he  would  acquire  if  he  were 


110       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

allowed  to  appoint  the  rest  of  the  present  state 
ticket. 

In  other  states  there  is  wide  variation.  New 
Jersey  has  no  elective  administrative  offices 
except  the  governor.  There  is  not  even  an 
elective  lieutenant-governor.  Ohio,  Illinois, 
California,  South  Dakota,  Oklahoma,  and 
most  of  the  remaining  states  go  to  the  other 
extreme  and  make  the  voters  choose  a  great 
mass  of  petty  state  officers,  such  as  the  state 
printer,  trustees  of  the  state  university,  dairy 
and  food  commissioner,  etc.  The  choice  of 
which  officers  to  elect  and  which  to  appoint 
seems  to  have  been  entirely  capricious. 

In  all  cases  these  officers  are  invisible.  If  by 
a  printer's  error  one  of  these  little  officers 
should  be  omitted  from  the  ballot,  the  voters, 
if  not  notified,  would  vote  the  ticket  and  be 
none  the  wiser.  If  the  Democratic  nominee  for 
state  engineer  in  New  York  were  by  a  printer's 
error  slipped  into  the  Republican  column,  he 
would  be  elected  with  the  Republicans,  unless 
the  voters  could  be  warned;  and  there  would 
be  a  pretty  legal  tangle  to  determine  whether 
the  multitude  who  voted  a  straight  ticket 
were  supposed  to  know  what  they  were  doing 
or  not. 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  111 

A  conscientious  voter  trying  to  accomplish 
the  unnatural  and  uninteresting  task  of  find- 
ing out  which  of  the  various  candidates  for 
state  treasurer  was  best  fitted  for  his  job, 
would  be  unable  to  discover  enough  informa- 
tion about  them  in  the  newspapers  to  justify 
the  formation  of  an  opinion.  Of  general  public 
criticism  and  counter-criticism  there  is  none. 
A  candidate  can  get  elected  without  making 
a  single  public  speech  to  plead  that  he  is  su- 
perior in  qualifications  for  the  office. 

The  people,  voting  as  they  think  best  when 
they  know  what  they  think,  and  blindly  en- 
dorsing the  party  machine  in  the  case  of  the 
obscure  offices,  are  doing  wisely.  Voting  a 
straight  ticket  is  at  least  better  than  voting 
at  random,  for  a  party  machine  is  somewhat 
responsible  and  somewhat  desirous  of  making 
a  good  showing.  But  the  fact  that  the  great 
body  of  voters  will  support  any  respectable 
figure  whom  the  party  machine  decides  to 
nominate,  leaves  to  the  machine  complete  dis- 
cretion in  the  matter.  Accordingly  at  state 
conventions  the  choice  of  candidate  for  gov- 
ernor is  almost  solely  dependent  upon  what  the 
people  will  think,  and  the  choice  of  minor 
offices  is  almost  solely  dependent  upon  what 


112       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

a  few  politicians  think.  The  whole  matter  is 
settled  by  a  dozen  men  in  the  conventions  of 
the  two  principal  parties;  and  while  there  may 
be  some  doubt  as  to  which  of  the  two  party 
groups  will  win,  —  a  matter  in  which  the  merit 
of  these  minor  nominations  plays  only  an  in- 
significant part,  —  there  is  no  doubt  that  these 
two  groups  hold  between  them  a  perfect  and 
unassailable  monopoly.  There  is  no  possibility 
of  a  successful  independent  ungrouped  candi- 
dacy for  a  minor  state  office,  to  act  as  a  check 
upon  the  exercise  of  the  bosses'  discretion. 
Under  either  the  convention  system  or  any 
other  nominating  plan,  the  absence  of  the  people 
from  the  whole  discussion  leaves  control  in  the 
hands  of  the  few  who  are  interested  enough 
to  take  a  hand  in  the  matter. 

The  plan  of  having  the  people  select  these 
minor  state  officials  has  been  attempted  and 
has  failed.  The  experiment  has  been  thoroughly 
made  and  the  plan  has  not  worked.  That  fact 
is  sufficient  reason  for  its  abandonment.  The 
contrary  idea  of  appealing  to  the  people,  by 
exhortation  and  prayer,  to  take  an  interest  in 
an  uninteresting  thing,  is  futile.  Human  nature 
may  alter  in  that  direction  some  day,  but  we 
cannot  wait  to  see! 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  113 

LIEUTENANT-GOVERNORS 

Our  natural  sentiment  favors  the  selection 
by  the  people  of  the  man  who  takes  the  gov- 
ernor's place  in  case  of  death.  The  average 
American  thinks  of  the  post  as  one  which  the 
people  should  fill  by  election.  I  fancy  that  most 
citizens  in  New  Jersey,  where  the  successor 
of  the  governor  is  not  elective,  would  quietly 
applaud  a  movement  in  a  constitutional  con- 
vention to  provide  for  an  elective  lieutenant- 
governor  like  other  states. 

This,  for  most  constitution-writers,  real  or 
imaginary,  would  settle  the  matter.  But  you 
and  I  are  cranks  and  we  inquire  further.  The 
plan  of  requiring  the  people  to  choose  lieuten- 
ant-governors has  been  tried.  Has  it  worked? 
Do  the  people  select  their  lieutenant-gov- 
ernors? 

I  think  not.  Can  you,  as  a  sample  citizen, 
give  offhand  the  full  name  of  the  lieutenant- 
governor  of  your  state?  Did  you  have  anything 
to  say  about  his  selection  before  the  niatter 
was  settled  for  you  by  the  powers  of  the  party 
machine?  Did  the  question  agitate  the  public 
mind  as  the  selection  of  the  gubernatorial  can- 
didate did?  Did  the  public  opinion  which 


114        SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

named  the  eligible  list  for  the  governorship 
name  also  an  eligible  list  for  lieutenant-gov- 
ernor? 

Is  n't  it  true  that  often  the  people  of  your 
state  have  compelled  the  nomination  of  a  cham- 
pion of  certain  policies  and  ideals  for  the  gov- 
ernorship, and  have  indolently  permitted  the 
party  to  name  on  the  same  ticket  for  lieu  tenant- 
governor  some  party  hack  whose  policies  and 
ideals  were  just  the  opposite?  How  often 
have  the  people  elected  a  lieutenant-governor 
whom  they  would  not  have  approved  of  for  a 
moment  if  during  the  campaign  a  serious  ill- 
ness of  his  superior  had  brought  him  out  of  his 
obscurity  into  "that  fierce  light  which  beats 
upon  the  throne"? 

The  election  of  a  man  whom  the  people 
would  not  favor  if  they  knew  him,  demon- 
strates that  the  voters  have  not  functioned  at 
the  polls  as  the  constitutional  convention 
wanted  them  to.  The  intentions  of  those  who 
devised  the  plan  were  good,  but,  when  tried, 
the  plan  did  not  result  in  popular  control. 
There  is  no  appealing  from  the  test  of  prac- 
tice to  reason  and  theory.  The  office  is  not 
visible. 

In  offering  a  theory  to  explain  the  results  of 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  115 

the  test  of  practice,  I  am  adding  only  non- 
essential  comment  for  the  comfort  of  the  stub- 
born reasoner  who  says,  "Drat  it  —  the  idea 
ought  to  work  anyhow!"  No.  It  ought  not  to 
be  expected  to  work  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
one  vital  factor  in  the  plan  is  a  mass  of  hu- 
man beings  who,  as  at  present  constituted,  do 
not  interest  themselves  in  uninteresting  things 
except  under  compulsion.  And  the  people  are 
too  big  to  be  spanked. 

Should  we  really  be  disturbed  if  the  death 
of  a  lieutenant-governor  at  the  beginning  of 
his  term  left  the  succession  to  an  official  whom 
the  people  did  not  elect? 

CHIEF   EXECUTIVES 

In  the  case  of  governor  or  president,  the 
office  is  visible.  The  district,  except  in  the 
smallest  states,  is  not  wieldy.  Our  relative 
success  as  a  people  in  controlling  those  offices 
demonstrates  that  visibility  is  more  vital  than 
wieldiness  of  district.  Even  though  we  must 
use  the  politicians'  own  machinery  to  estab- 
lish a  hopeful  nomination,  independent  cam- 
paigns for  the  governorship  or  presidency  be- 
ing almost  impossibly  difficult,  we  have  often 
specified  the  very  man  who  should  be  chosen 


116        SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

and  almost  always  are  obeyed  in  our  require- 
ments as  to  the  type  of  man  who  shall  be  se- 
lected. Nevertheless,  in  very  many  cases  the 
conditions  are  far  from  being  satisfactory,  and 
the  people  find  that  they  are  sharing  the  con- 
trol of  these  officers  with  sinister  self -established 
coteries  of  political  specialists. 

Yet  the  very  men  who  express  horror  at  the 
short-ballot  doctrine,  fearing  that  it  leads 
toward  autocracy  and  kings,  would  take  most 
offense  at  any  proposal  to  dispense  with  our 
powerful  chief  executive.  But  if  the  people 
are  to  have  unthreatened  and  complete  con- 
trol over  all  sources  of  governmental  authority, 
some  way  must  be  found  by  which  the  people 
can  dispense  with  the  help  of  the  professional 
politician,  when  undertaking  to  hire  a  good 
man  for  governor. 

There  are  various  ways  of  managing  it, 
and  I  grant  you  in  advance  we  shall  never 
adopt  any  of  them.  One  way  —  a  bad  one  — 
is  to  district  the  state  and  let  electors  be  chosen 
from  each  district,  later  to  meet,  deliberate  and 
select  a  chief  magistrate.  In  the  case  of  the 
President  and  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States,  this  was  done.  But  the  popular  mind 
hurdled  over  the  barriers  and  insisted  on  dis- 


FITS  AND  MISFITS  117 

cussing  ultimate  consequences,  until  the  dele- 
gates to  the  Electoral  College  became  automata 
and  the  whole  device  dwindled  in  importance 
until  it  has  become  a  mere  vermiform  appendix 
of  our  political  system. 

Another  solution  —  a  good  one  —  is  to  let 
the  legislature  —  our  improved  limelighted 
legislature  —  elect  the  governor  and  control 
him,  somewhat  as  Parliament  performs  execu- 
tive functions  through  its  prime  minister,  or  as 
the  board  of  directors  chooses  the  chief  execu- 
tive of  a  corporation. 

But  our  chief  executives  appeal  to  the 
popular  imagination  so  much  that  no  such 
proposal  would  ever  obtain  a  fair  hearing  on  its 
merits.  I  believe,  however,  we  shall  arrive  at 
our  goal  of  popular  control  by  a  new  route. 
The  change  of  the  rest  of  our  system  to  a  work- 
able popular  basis  will  so  weaken  the  present 
party  machines,  by  destroying  most  of  the 
strategic  advantages  which  they  now  enjoy, 
that  they  will  be  easy  to  cope  with.  The  change 
will  also  clear  the  way  for  new  parties  repre- 
senting fresh  ideas  and  ideals,  and  will  give 
them  a  chance  to  live  and  grow  to  an  effective 
size,  whereas  now  they  die  a-borning.  The  way 
will  be  cleared  also  for  new  kinds  of  parties, 


118       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

and  in  new  kind  of  parties,  based  unshakably 
on  genuine  principles,  we  must  seek  the  solu- 
tion of  the  remaining  political  awkwardnesses 
of  the  people. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

RAMSHACKLE   GOVERNMENT 

BARE  compliance  with  the  foregoing  Limi- 
tations of  Democracy  may  not  be  enough 
to  carry  us  all  the  way  to  popular  control.  Re- 
spect for  these  Limitations  puts  the  people  in 
the  driver's  seat  where  they  can  readily  reach 
and  operate  all  the  controlling  levers.  But 
suppose  the  governmental  organization  be  like 
one  of  those  first  unreliable  coffee-mill  cars  of 
the  earliest  days  of  the  automobile  industry,  so 
loose  and  weakly  jointed  that  it  is  incapable  of 
obeying  the  people  effectively,  no  matter  how 
hard  they  work  the  levers?  Such  a  government 
is  the  most  supinely  disobedient  government 
imaginable  and  a  government  that  is  likely  to 
disobey  so  continually  cannot  be  called  a  de- 
mocracy! 

The  favorite  and  cleverest  American  method 
of  balking  the  people  in  this  fashion  is  based  on 
our  ancient  superstitious  belief  in  "checks  and 
balances"  and  the  "separation  of  powers."  An 
imaginary  instance  helps  to  keep  us  clear  of  old 


120        SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

fallacies,  so  let  us  do  some  supposing.  Suppose 
the  people  of  this  country  are  to  send  to  Europe 
a  group  of  popular  representatives  to  conduct 
certain  important  negotiations  and  labors. 
Having  elected  the  right  men  by  adherence  to 
the  Two  Limitations  we  have  been  discussing, 
do  we  then  proceed  to  allow  them  to  sit  as  one 
body,  hire  their  own  expert  help,  execute  their 
own  decisions  and  take  responsibility  for  secur- 
ing for  us  the  results  we  want?  Oh  no!  Forsooth 
we  must  pick  out  one  member  from  that  dele- 
gation, isolate  him  and  give  him  power  to  undo 
the  work  of  all  the  others  with  a  veto!  Then  we 
must  divide  the  remainder  into  two  houses  so  as 
to  multiply  chances  for  disagreement  and  "  make 
it  hard  for  a  bad  measure  to  get  through."  Then 
as  there  will  be  certain  clerks  and  financial  offi- 
cials needed  to  handle  details  of  this  work,  we 
will  ourselves  pick  out  other  members  of  the 
delegation,  call  them  clerk,  treasurer,  etc.,  and 
give  them  certain  independent  powers  of  over- 
sight and  interference.  And  when  we  shipped 
this  complicated  ramshackle  organization  to 
Europe,  we  should  expect  it  to  handle  its  work 
efficiently  without  deadlocks,  hold-ups,  delays, 
or  quarrels! 

Why,  it  is  organized  for  inefficiency !  If  that 


RAMSHACKLE  GOVERNMENT      121 

treasurer,  for  example,  has  a  pet  idea  of  his 
own,  he  has  power  to  hold  up  the  rest  of  the  del- 
egation on  various  pretexts  until  he  has  com- 
pelled them  to  acquiesce.  Each  house,  and  each 
officer,  being  independent  of  the  rest,  has  op- 
portunities to  trade  and  log-roll,  and  being 
protected  in  the  right,  cannot  be  squelched  by 
the  majority.  If  the  clerk  furnished  poor  co- 
operation with  the  rest  of  the  delegation,  they 
would  have  to  make  the  best  of  it,  for  they  are 
not  his  masters.  If  the  whole  result  of  such 
organization  were  chaos  and  deadlock,  the  ra- 
tional cure  would  be  to  bring  all  the  members 
of  the  delegation  together  as  one  body  with  a 
single  vote  apiece,  let  them  thresh  out  their 
differences  in  discussion  and  then  settle  the 
matter  by  the  simple  process  of  taking  votes 
and  ordering  the  carrying  out  of  the  decisions 
by  servants  ofj  their  own  who  would  have  no 
authority  to  "talk  back."  And  that  would 
bring  you  back  to  the  original  natural  plan  of 
vesting  all  the  power  in  a  single  body ! 

The  British  city  elects  perhaps  twenty  men 
who  sit  in  a  single-chambered  council  with  no 
other  elective  city  officials  to  interfere  with 
them,  and  the  British  city  gets  results. 

The  American  city  elects  twenty  men  who 


122       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

sit  on  several  separate  statutory  pedestals, 
called  "  Council,"  "  Mayor,"  "  Board  of  Works," 
"Tax  Commission,"  "Comptroller,"  etc.,  each 
having  power  to  slap  the  face  of  the  others,  and 
when  the  people  fail  to  secure  obedience  to  their 
will,  they  must  burrow  through  a  labyrinth 
of  detail  to  find  out  who  is  responsible  for  the 
hold-up.  The  plan  so  multiplies  the  blocking 
power  of  honest  disagreements  that  the  gov- 
ernment, like  an  automobile  with  a  separate 
motor  at  every  wheel,  is  almost  incapable  of 
that  orderly  harmony  which  is  necessary  for 
efficient  low-frictioned  action. 

A  city  so  organized  might  have,  and  often 
does  have,  a  Short  Ballot  with  no  obscure 
offices,  and  wieldy  districts.  But  without  a  rea- 
sonable "Unification  of  Powers"  to  enable  it  to 
obey  the  people,  it  may  simply  quiver  under 
the  jerked  levers  and  helplessly  fail  to  move  as 
directed. 

To  be  sure,  if  we  have  elected  the  right  men 
they  may  waive  their  differences,  may  not  take 
advantage  of  opportunities  to  block  and  check 
when  they  are  in  the  minority,  may  not  use 
the  chances  to  betray  the  people  without  get- 
ting spotted.  But  in  a  complete  democracy 
the  mechanism  must  be  designed  so  that  har- 


mony  of  action  can  be  compelled — not  merely 
urged. 

"Unification  of  Powers"  makes  it  possible 
to  secure  the  necessary  clear  public  location  of 
responsibility.  In  our  city  plan  of  govern- 
ment, for  instance,  responsibility  is  obscured. 
When  something  goes  wrong,  the  people  blame 
the  mayor,  the  mayor  tells  them  to  blame  the 
council,  the  council  tells  them  to  blame  the 
board  of  works,  and  the  board  of  works  blames 
the  mayor,  thus  sending  the  people  around  a 
circle  without  giving  them  any  satisfaction. 
Each  officer  in  the  circle  may  really  have  a  valid 
excuse  and  might  conceivably  ask  and  secure 
reelection  year  after  year  while  the  people  are 
vainly  trying  to  enforce  their  will.  Making  an 
officer's  responsibility  invisible  is  as  undesirable 
as  making  the  officer  himself  invisible.  The 
practical  solution  sometimes  is  for  the  people  to 
secure  unity  of  control  by  allowing  a  boss  to  put 
in  power  puppets  who  will  yield  to  his  dictation, 
and  then  hold  the  boss  morally  responsible! 

There  is  obviously  a  loss  in  the  ability  of  the 
people  to  hold  an  official  accountable  if  they 
themselves  choose  his  subordinates.  'The 
stockholders  of  a  corporation  who  choose  not 
merely  the  directors  but  also  the  business  man- 


124       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

ager  would  not  thus  gain  additional  control 
over  the  business,  but  would  lose.  In  choosing 
the  manager  they  are  diminishing  the  power 
of  their  other  servants,  the  directors,  and  are 
furnishing  the  latter  with  an  opportunity  to  say 
"It's  not  our  fault"  when  things  go  wrong. 
Likewise,  in  our  cities  which  elect  a  council  and 
mayor,  the  people  have  no  more  "power"  than 
the  people  of  a  city  which  elects  only  a  council. 
In  the  latter  case  the  people's  council  is  more 
powerful, — that's  all,  and  the  control  by  the 
people,  which  is  the  real  thing  we  are  after,  is 
the  more  complete  in  the  simpler  plan. 

The  innate  inefficiency  of  even  the  simplest 
instance  of  separated  powers  is  seen  in  cities 
governed  by  mayor  and  council  where  the 
mayor's  selections  of  his  executive  helpers  re- 
quire confirmation  by  the  council,  while  the 
council  makes  ordinances  and  appropriations 
and  levies  the  taxes.  Generally,  an  exchange 
of  functions  ensues.  The  members  of  the  coun- 
cil, not  being  held  responsible  for  the  conduct  of 
the  administrative  departments,  either  legally 
or  in  the  popular  mind,  proceed  to  interfere 
recklessly  with  departmental  appointments, 
refusing  to  cooperate  with  the  mayor  until 
their  friends  have  been  given  lucrative  posi- 


RAMSHACKLE  GOVERNMENT      125 

tions.  As  the  mayor,  not  they,  will  be  respon- 
sible for  the  work  of  these  appointees,  they  need 
not  worry  about  the  capacity  of  these  men  to 
earn  their  salaries.  In  exchange,  the  council 
permits  the  mayor  to  plan  and  initiate  most 
of  the  municipal  legislation  and  draw  up  the 
budget.  As  the  council,  not  he,  will  be  respon- 
sible for  the  bigness  of  the  appropriations  and 
the  corresponding  bigness  of  the  tax  levy,  the 
mayor  has  small  inducement  to  economize. 
Similar  exchanges  of  power  without  exchange 
of  responsibility  are  seen  in  the  state  and  na- 
tional governments  whose  powers  are  likewise 
divided,  and  the  general  interests  of  the  com- 
munity suffer. 

Such  conditions  increase  the  friction  in  the 
government,  increase  the  frictional  resistance 
to  popular  demand,  and  make  the  government 
less  obedient,  less  sensitive  to  the  controlling 
levers.  And  thus  the  people  find  themselves 
balked  and  baffled,  get  discouraged,  make  fewer 
demands  and  make  them  more  half-heartedly 
in  a  spirit  of  speculation  as  to  whether  this  time 
the  shaky  ramshackle  may  not  happen  to  re- 
spond. And  in  taking  this  attitude,  as  in  every- 
thing else, the  people  are  quite  possibly  right.— 
The  trouble  of  getting  an  improvement  or  stop- 


126        SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

ping  a  graft  may  in  some  circumstances  actually 
be  greater  than  the  resulting  advantage  war- 
rants. The  civic  inertia  in  many  an  American 
city  has  vanished  immediately  upon  the  adop- 
tion of  the  sensitive  Commission  Plan  of  Gov- 
ernment. "  Our  people  seem  to  have  been  made 
over,"  says  an  experienced  official  and  ex-mayor 
of  Des  Moines.  "They  are  interested  in  mu- 
nicipal matters  now  and  are  willing  to  sub- 
scribe money  and  energy  for  city  improvement 
with  an  unflagging  enthusiasm  we  never  saw 
before." 

Another  ingenious  American  way  of  balking 
the  people,  even  when  they  find  themselves  at 
the  controlling  levers  of  a  workable  car,  is  to 
tie  the  steering  wheel,  State  constitutional  con- 
ventions, which  assume  legislative  functions  and 
crystallize  their  humanly  defective  foresight 
into  rigid  written  documents,  often  do  this.  So 
do  legislatures,  which  hand  down  to  cities  spe- 
cifically enumerated  and  limited  powers,  and 
charters,  which  inflexibly  regulate  administra- 
tion down  to  its  details  so  that  every  improve- 
ment in  efficiency  calls  for  the  passage  of  a 
special  enabling  act  or  amendment  by  remote 
and  uncomprehending  legislators.  The  idea  of 
thus  tying  up  the  steering  wheel  and  shortening 


RAMSHACKLE   GOVERNMENT      127 

its  turning  arc  is  to  make  it  certain  that  the  car 
will  go  straight  ahead.  "Straight  ahead"  may 
lead  over  bumps  and  stones  and  through  deep, 
speed-slackening  sand.  Flexibility  is  essential 
to  responsiveness  and  real  control.  The  elective 
public  servants,  who  constitute  the  people's 
steering  wheel,  are  not  servants  at  all  if  they 
are  bound  hand  and  foot  by  red-tape.  Consti- 
tutions, unless  made  primitively  short  and  sim- 
ple or  made  of  rubber  by  great  ease  of  amend- 
ment as  in  Oklahoma,  are  often  not  guarantees 
of  liberty,  but  rather  denials  of  popular  con- 
trol. Often  we  see  roundabout  evasion  of  a 
state  constitution  frankly  managed  and  justi- 
fied as  a  triumph  of  the  popular  will  over  an 
obstacle! 

Simple  and  thoroughly  unified  governments 
that  can  do  things,  simple  state  constitutions, 
municipal  home  rule,  and  county  home  rule  on 
the  new  California  plan  which  allows  each 
county  to  devise  and  run  its  own  government 
-  all  these  and  more  things,  too,  are  among  the 
requirements  that  demand  consideration  in 
building  a  democracy  that  will  "democ." 

Condensing  the  idea  further  —  the  govern- 
ment must  be  strong  and  unhampered.  This  is  a 
Third  Limitation  of  Democracy. 


128       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

Weak,  disjointed,  ramshackle  governments 
are  more  than  ever  undemocratic  in  these  days 
of  the  great  private  corporations  which  in  their 
wealth  and  resources  loom  over  our  feeble  pub- 
lic organizations  and  make  the  latter  look  like 
infants  policing  giants.  Considering  how  the 
people  are  contesting  with  private  powers  for 
the  control  of  privilege  and  the  natural  sources 
of  wealth,  the  demand  for  stronger  governments, 
unhampered  governments  that  can  obey,  be- 
comes part  of  the  unwritten  modern  bill  of 
rights.  You  will  find  when  you  speak  of  gov- 
ernmental simplification  to  a  politician,  he  will 
cry,  "That's  conferring  too  much  power!" 
One  of  his  cronies,  that  famous  beast  called 
"Privilege,"  will  say  the  same,  for  Privilege 
dearly  loves  to  race  with  a  slow,  wheezy  ma- 
chine that  runs  uncertainly  and  stops  fre- 
quently for  readjustments  and  repairs!  But 
your  champion  of  popular  rights  will  not  shiver 
a  bit.  The  people  will  perhaps  want  to  wait  till 
they  are  surely  in  control.  They  have  seen 
other  untrusted  forces  controlling  so  much  in 
the  past  that  to  increase  the  strength  of  the  gov- 
ernments begets  fear  of  misuse  of  the  enlarged 
powers.  So  no  doubt  we  shall  have  to  be  con- 
tent with  getting  the  Short  Ballot  first.  When 


RAMSHACKLE   GOVERNMENT      129 

the  people  find  in  their  hands  all  the  instru- 
ments of  control,  they  will  no  longer  fear  to 
have  stripped  away  the  hampering  checks  and 
balances  and  legal  interferences  of  the  present 
regime. 


CHAPTER  IX 

PARTIES  AND   WHY   THEY   CANNOT   BE 
RESPONSIBLE 

WHEN  the  clumsiness  and  complexity  of 
politics  leave  the  bulk  of  the  people 
staring  helplessly  into  its  shadowy  jungle, 
those  few  volunteers  who  leave  other  occupa- 
tions and  go  hi  and  master  the  ramifications 
and  practical  details  of  it  are  called  "politi- 
cians." Or,  to  reverse  the  definition,  a  politi- 
cian is  a  citizen  who  knows  what  he  is  doing 
on  election  day. 

When  a  political  system  is  incomplete, 
stretching  only  part  way  toward  the  up- 
reaching  people  who  are  supposed  to  operate 
it,  the  necessary  improvised  informal  volun- 
teer machinery  that  fills  the  gap  is  called  a 
"political  machine." 

When  a  considerable  number  of  the  people 
come  to  believe  in  a  certain  state  policy,  in  dis- 
tinction to  others  of  the  people  who  disbelieve 
in  it,  the  groups  are  called  "parties." 

A  party  to  be  effective  needs  some  sort  of 


PARTIES  131 

organization  to  bring  about  unity  of  action 
among  its  members  —  hence  the  formation  of 
party  machinery  and  of  party  machines.  The 
machines,  in  operating  a  governmental  mechan- 
ism so  complicated  that  then*  actions  are  not 
subject  to  adequate  review  by  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  party,  acquire  the  opportunity  to  use 
unchecked  discretion  in  the  name  of  the  party 
and  become  more  powerful  than  the  party. 
Originally  intended  to  be  only  the  obedient 
steering-engine  of  the  ship,  responsive  to  the 
touch  of  the  wheel  on  the  captain's  bridge,  the 
party  machine  has  become  conscious  of  its 
power  to  direct  the  ship  and  has  done  so,  there- 
by acquiring  virtual  command.  The  object  of 
a  party  is  the  installation  of  a  principle  in  the 
government.  The  object  of  a  party  machine 
is  continuance  in  power.  The  party  and  the 
machine  are  two  very  different  things. 

The  Republican  party,  for  example,  was  at 
the  time  of  its  foundation  a  genuine  party 
founded  for  a  specific  purpose.  This  object  was 
successfully  accomplished,  and  after  a  few 
years  when  all  danger  that  the  nation  might 
undo  the  work  was  safely  past,  all  reason  for 
the  further  existence  of  the  Republican  party 
had  vanished.  From  that  time  on,  the  Repub- 


132       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

lican  party  was  not  a  true  party  at  all,  inas- 
much as  its  members  were  not  a  group  of  voters 
bonded  together  to  establish  a  principle.  New 
questions  arose,  upon  which  Republicans  were 
not  all  agreed;  the  party  lines  no  longer  fol- 
lowed certain  planes  of  natural  cleavage  of 
opinion,  and  the  "party"  became  an  artificial 
and  purposeless  union  of  more  or  less  uncon- 
genial voters.  But  the  powerful  party  machines 
were  still  existent  and  had  no  thought  of  con- 
senting to  be  sent  to  the  scrap-heap.  Thence- 
forward the  Republican  party  was  only  a  ma- 
chine, plus  an  enrollment  of  more  or  less  willing, 
habit-driven  voters.  A  Republican  victory  after 
the  war  meant  the  triumph  of  no  particular 
principle,  but  only  the  success  of  a  machine  in 
grasping  power.  From  a  position  of  power  in 
the  machine  the  high-minded  men  who  founded 
it  for  a  purpose  were  soon  displaced  in  favor 
of  men  who  were  more  effective  machinists. 
So  far  as  possible  new  principles  were  sup- 
pressed lest  they  divide  the  party's  following. 
When  issues  became  too  important  to  be  either 
ignored  or  straddled,  the  Republican  party 
would  take  one  side,  the  Democratic  party 
the  other.  All  good  Republicans  were  expected 
to  adjust  their  ideas  accordingly  and  become 


PARTIES  133 

high  protectionists  and  gold-standard  advo- 
cates, while  all  good  Democrats  were  expected 
to  change  or  ignore  their  individual  convic- 
tions rather  than  wrench  themselves  away 
from  their  dear  party.  Party  loyalty  was  en- 
thusiastically fostered  by  the  machine-work- 
ers, and  the  mugwump  who  varied  from  one 
party  to  another  according  to  the  policies  ad- 
vanced was  jeered  and  scorned. 

There  is  nothing  much  funnier  in  our  Ameri- 
can politics  than  the  wild  pawing-in-the-air  of 
campaign  orators  who  attempt  to  treat  the 
party  as  if  it  were  a  real  party  representing 
some  common  idea  of  its  members  —  the 
scurrying  after  "issues,"  the  attempt  to  make 
every  good  thing  that  has  happened  appear  to 
be  of  Republican  creation  and  every  bad  thing 
Democratic  —  or  vice  versa !  What  uncanny 
coincidence  of  opinion,  that  the  people  who 
agree  on  national  policies  should  also  be  of 
one  mind  in  the  entirely  separate  discussion 
of  state  policies,  county  policies,  and  city 
policies !  How  vague  the  orator  becomes  when 
he  apostrophizes  those  strangely  agile  prin- 
ciples of  the  party  which  can  fit  so  many  di- 
verse situations! 

Of  course  the  thing  is  simply  unbelievable. 


134        SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

Persistent  arguing  by  reformers  in  our  cities 
has  convinced  the  people  that  national  policies 
have  no  bearing  upon  city  policies,  and  the 
fact  that  a  man  approves  Republican  national 
policies  is  no  reason  why  he  should  approve 
what  happen  to  be  "Republican"  city  policies. 
But  although  we  have  been  less  often  urged 
to  recognize  it,  there  is  no  natural  unity  be- 
tween state  and  national  parties  either.  We 
ought  in  theory  to  have  one  set  of  national 
parties  battling  on  national  policies,  other  sets 
of  state  parties  dividing  on  state  issues,  sets  of 
parties  in  each  county,  each  city,  each  township. 
For  on  each  of  these  political  battle-fields  the 
grouping  of  men  according  to  their  opinions 
will  produce  different  combinations.  To  make 
the  same  company  fight  as  a  unit  for  so  many 
different  causes  means  inevitably  that  some 
of  the  soldiers  will  be  on  sides  they  do  not 
really  favor  and  thus  public  opinion  is  sup- 
pressed. 

In  fact,  it  is  only  logical  to  carry  the  idea 
further.  When  the  coroner  is  made  elective, 
it  is  to  be  presumed  that  there  is  opportunity 
there  for  a  difference  of  opinion — that,  for  in- 
stance, the  people  are  expected  to  divide  on  such 
issues  as  whether  to  elect  a  coroner  who  pro- 


PARTIES  135 

poses  to  buy  an  automobile  to  answer  calls 
quickly,  or  to  elect  his  opponent  who  will  save 
money  and  let  the  cases  wait  while  he  comes  by 
street  car.  No  issues  concerning  the  coroner- 
ship  can  possibly  be  allied  to  issues  concerning 
the  county  clerkship,  the  sheriff's  office,  or  the 
surrogate's  or  any  other  office.  Accordingly, 
if  parties  are  to  consist  of  people  who  agree 
on  a  given  policy,  we  must  have  separate  par- 
ties for  every  office!  Of  course  this  is  absolutely 
impracticable,  but  it  serves  to  illustrate  how 
utterly  impossible  it  is  for  any  such  compli- 
cated system  as  ours,  with  its  multiplicity 
of  elective  offices,  to  be,  at  all  these  points  of 
contact  with  the  people,  responsive  to  their 
movements.  Long  ballots,  so  far  from  making 
the  government  sensitive  to  public  opinion, 
actually  balk  and  bewilder  public  opinion, 
making  it  certain  that  multitudes  will  ever  be 
voting  against  their  own  desires. 

Unable  to  operate  so  complicated  a  key- 
board, the  people  have  done  the  next  best 
thing  and  have  delegated  their  functions  whole- 
sale to  the  party  machines.  Average  voters 
use  their  own  judgment  so  far  as  they  have 
light,  and  put  responsibility  for  all  the  rest  of 
the  work  upon  the  party.  Few  voters  in  large 


136         SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

communities  can  name  all  the  men  they  vote 
for  on  any  election  day.  They  vote  for  gover- 
nors, mayors,  and  presidents  in  accordance 
with  well-considered  opinions,  but  for  the 
"invisible"  state  treasurers,  members  of  legis- 
latures, county  clerks,  city  solicitors,  etc., 
they  vote  a  straight  ticket  without  even  read- 
ing the  names.  It  would  do  them  small  good 
if  they  did  read  the  names,  for  the  minor  offices 
rarely  have  enough  to  do  with  interesting 
policies  to  furnish  food  for  discussion,  and  in 
consequence  the  newspapers  pay  little  atten- 
tion to  them.  If  the  party  label  were  unexpect- 
edly omitted  from  the  ballot,  nfost  voters 
would  pore  over  the  list  of  names  helplessly, 
and  would  consider  themselves  clever  if  they 
could  so  much  as  recollect  which  of  the  minor 
candidates  had  been  nominated  by  their  party. 
There  is  no  idea  in  the  citizen's  mind  of  com- 
paring the  candidates  man  for  man,  and  se- 
lecting the  best  man  in  each  case.  He  lacks  the 
information  on  which  to  base  an  opinion,  and 
in  voting  a  straight  ticket  he  expresses  none, 
except  to  show  that  he  considers  the  bosses  in 
his  party  more  reliable  than  the  gang  that 
runs  the  other  party.  Theoretically,  if  his  party 
nominates  a  bad  man  for  county  clerk  it  will 


PARTIES  137 

suffer  in  due  proportion  by  alienation  of  votes; 
but  the  absence  of  public  scrutiny  smashes  the 
theory  and  the  party  can  in  fact  nominate  a 
bad  man  or  a  good  man  without  causing  seri- 
ous fluctuation  among  its  blind  supporters. 
Of  course  if  the  vote  is  close  enough  to  catch 
the  five  per  cent  or  ten  per  cent  of  fluctuation 
that  may  result,  a  split  ticket  instead  of  the 
straight  ticket  will  get  elected.  But  as  a  rule 
the  whole  ticket  will  stand  or  fall  as  a  unit. 

This  blind  delegation  of  control  to  the  party 
machine  gives  it  a  complete  discretion  which 
it  is  more  than  ready  to  use.  Knowing  that  the 
public  will  accept  any  reasonably  respectable 
figure  nominated  by  the  party,  and  will  not 
respond  to  any  efforts  to  win  it  with  a  superior 
quality  of  offerings  for  invisible  offices,  the 
party  managers  simply  exclude  the  people's 
wish  from  further  consideration.  Whatever 
that  wish  may  be,  it  won't  be  expressed  in  the 
voting,  —  so  why  cater  to  it?  Accordingly,  at 
the  state  convention  for  instance,  assembling 
to  nominate  candidates  for  governor,  lieuten- 
ant-governor, secretary  of  state,  attorney- 
general,  etc.,  a  small  group  prepares  a  "slate." 
The  bosslets  come  before  this  group  intriguing, 
bargaining,  threatening,  bluffing,  and  plead- 


138        SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

ing  for  a  share  of  the  pie  of  patronage.  This 
coterie  becomes  the  clearing  house,  a  slate 
is  prepared  that  balances  up  the  conflicting 
claims  as  evenly  as  possible,  resulting  usually 
in  division,  regardless  of  the  merit  of  candidates, 
on  a  geographical  basis,  and  the  slate  is  pre- 
sented to  the  convention  and  accepted  intact. 

The  bosslet  who  has  wrested  from  the  com- 
mittee the  right  to  name  the  attorney-gen- 
eral of  the  state  naturally  expects  that  the 
nominee  after  election  will  be  duly  grateful 
and  will  repay  him  out  of  the  treasury  of  the 
state.  The  payment  may  be  in  the  form  of  jobs 
that  are  easy  enough  to  leave  time  for  political 
activity,  or  in  the  form  of  "influence"  that 
can  be  privately  marketed  to  seekers  of  privi- 
lege. It  is  all  very  simple  and  very  familiar, 
and  it  all  has  its  root  in  the  fact  that  the  people 
have  not  been  selecting  such  officials  but  have 
only  been  electing  them.  The  party  machine 
has  acquired  and  is  exercising  a  power  that 
properly  should  remain  in  the  hands  of  the 
people. 

Now  to  give  a  party  machine  the  right  to 
make  a  nomination  is  not  giving  it  any  power 
whatever  if  that  nomination  is  to  be  adequately 
scrutinized,  and  if  also  there  is  chance  for  a 


PARTIES  139 

competitor  to  enter  the  contest.  A  corrupt 
machine  is  powerless  to  do  evil  under  such 
circumstances  and  is  not  in  the  least  danger- 
ous. But  when  scrutiny  is  wanting,  the  ma- 
chine is  left  with  unchecked  discretion,  and 
that  is  power  —  great  power. 

I  can  safely  purchase  apples  from  any  mer- 
chant if  I  am  allowed  to  subject  the  entire 
barrel  to  adequate  examination.  But  if  the 
merchants  know  I  cannot  do  more  than  look 
at  the  top  of  the  barrel,  sooner  or  later  some 
merchant  will  put  bricks  in  the  bottom  and  I 
shall  be  cheated.  My  natural  recourse  is  to 
trade  only  at  a  shop  where  my  experience  has 
been  satisfactory. 

We  patronize  the  party  shop  in  this  way 
when  we  acquire  the  habit  of  voting  a  ticket 
with  a  certain  label.  But  there  is  this  distinc- 
tion :  the  apple  shop  remains  in  the  same  hands 
year  after  year;  if  the  rival  merchant  wants  to 
cheat  me,  he  cannot  easily  acquire  control  of 
the  store  where  I  trade  and  thus  get  into  a 
position  where  he  can  take  advantage  of  my 
confidence. 

But  the  political  shop  is  constantly  changing 
hands.  The  controlling  spirits  in  it  to-day  are 
only  a  minority  to-morrow.  Rarely  does  a  state 


140        SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

now  permit  a  party  to  be  a  "close  corporation." 
The  parties  are  governed,  ultimately,  by  the 
rank  and  file  —  a  topsy-turvy  army  in  which 
the  generals  are  elected  by  the  captains  and 
the  captains  by  the  privates.  And  the  privates 
consist  of  anybody  who  wants  to  join.  A  politi- 
cal machine  cannot  resist  contamination.  Any 
man,  honest  or  otherwise,  may  join  it  and 
must  be  welcomed.  In  many  states  the  law 
specifically  protects  him  in  the  privilege  of  en- 
rolling and  of  sharing  in  the  internal  govern- 
ment of  the  party. 

To  place  political  power  in  such  unguarded 
exposure  is  to  make  it  certain  that  the  power 
will  sooner  or  later  fall  into  the  hands  of  cor- 
rupt men.  The  whole  process  is  automatic  and 
inevitable.  The  opportunity  to  cheat  will  at- 
tract the  cheaters  —  and  the  cheaters  must  be 
welcomed.  To  say  that  the  dominant  political 
machine  in  every  community  is  corrupt  is  no 
reflection  on  the  community  or  even  on  the 
machine  —  it  is  only  another  way  of  saying 
that  the  dominant  machine  is  the  one  that 
gets  corrupted.  The  moment  it  acquires  power, 
the  grafters  begin  to  join  it.  There  is  no  advan- 
tage in  corrupting  a  party  that  is  in  a  hopeless 
minority. 


PARTIES  141 

The  Prohibition  party  is  probably  as  pure 
as  the  water  it  advocates.  But  let  that  party 
become  dominant  in  any  community  and  it 
will  soon  find  its  ranks  filled  with  men  who  are 
there  for  plunder,  the  clergymen  will  find 
themselves  outvoted  in  its  conventions  and 
committees,  and  its  candidates  will  as  likely 
as  not  be  saloon-keepers.  Certainly  a  party 
in  which  saloon-keepers  and  their  sympathizers 
are  freely  permitted  to  enroll,  may  not  always 
be  a  Prohibition  party,  if  such  enrollment 
means  sharing  in  the  control  of  party  policies 
and  nominations. 

The  Citizens'  Union  in  New  York  City  is  an- 
other instance.  At  one  time  it  became  a  large 
party  with  subsidiary  organizations  in  every 
district  and  a  huge  enrollment.  It  outvoted  the 
Republican  party  at  one  election,  and  fused 
with  it  and  won  the  election  the  next  time.  It 
was  organized  on  the  idea  of  non-partisanship, 
and  its  founders  sincerely  disclaimed  all  in- 
tention of  using  patronage.  Despite  the  fact 
that  "no  patronage"  was  the  issue  on  which 
it  acquired  its  power,  the  originators  soon 
found  that  its  ranks  were  full  of  Tammany 
men  who  had  changed  over  to  the  winning 
side.  The  reformers  found  themselves  shoulder 


142       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

to  shoulder  with  men  who  had  not  taken  the 
ideals  of  the  Union  seriously,  who  clamored  for 
patronage  and  demanded  that  the  officials 
whom  they  had  elected  allow  them  to  sack  the 
town  exactly  as  Tammany  had  in  the  past. 
When  the  elected  officials  proved  "ungrateful" 
and  unwilling  to  create  a  permanent  Citizens' 
Union  machine  and  support  it  out  of  the  city 
treasury,  these  helpers  were  bitterly  aggrieved, 
and  the  Union  was  rent  with  internal  warfare. 
The  altruists  won  eventually,  but  only  after 
a  long  fight  in  which  the  party's  political 
strength  was  recklessly  sacrificed  to  save  the 
principle. 

In  Philadelphia  the  state  law  governing 
primary  procedure  makes  entrance  to  a  party 
quick  and  easy.  The  reformers  organize  a  re- 
form party  and  nominate  reform  candidates. 
Immediately  the  grafters  enroll  in  the  new 
party,  and  the  next  time  the  party  makes 
nominations  the  reformers  find  themselves 
outvoted  by  their  new  and  unwelcome  asso- 
ciates and  the  reform  party  nominates  grafters. 
Thereupon  the  true  reformers  hold  an  indigna- 
tion meeting,  adopt  a  new  name,  establish  a 
new  party,  leaving  the  previous  one  to  an  early 
death  —  and  the  procedure  is  repeated. 


PARTIES  143 

There  are  two  answers  to  the  difficulty. 
One  is  to  deprive  the  party  of  all  power  by  sub- 
jecting its  nominations  to  popular  examination, 
under  such  circumstances  that  every  improper 
nomination  will  be  easily  detected,  and  will 
result  in  the  immediate  offering  of  something 
more  satisfactory  by  active  or  latent  political 
competitors.  Full  obedience  to  the  Limitations 
of  Democracy  would  place  the  people  in  a 
political  environment  where  they  could  at  any 
moment  dispense  with  unfaithful  leadership 
and  thus  make  cheating  unprofitable. 

But  in  a  previous  chapter  I  agreed  that  we 
were  never  likely  to  dispense  with  elected 
presidents  and  governors,  the  unwieldiness  of 
whose  districts  will  always  leave  some  work 
for  political  machines.  We  must  eventually 
adopt  also  another  expedient  —  namely,  build 
machines  right  side  up,  and  make  guarded 
leaders  responsible  for  the  party  policies,  leav- 
ing the  people  fancy-free  to  rally  to  the  party 
of  whichever  leaders  win  their  confidence. 


CHAPTER  X 

"LEADERSHIP  PARTIES*' 

THE  government  should  be  a  democracy, 
but  the  party  should  be  an  autocracy. 
And,  curiously  enough,  to  make  the  parties 
autocratic  will  help  to  make  the  government 
a  democracy.  In  no  other  way  except  by 
clumsy  initiative  and  referendum  devices  can 
we  separate  the  people  into  principle-united 
groups  to  be  counted  at  elections  so  that  their 
wishes  can  be  accurately  determined. 

At  present  writing  (1911)  there  is  in  the 
United  States  a  strong  insurgent  progressive 
movement  led  by  certain  men  in  Congress, 
with  a  probable  majority  of  the  people  in  the 
country  ready  to  follow  their  leadership.  The 
Progressives  are  dissatisfied  with  both  the 
old  parties  and  suspicious  of  their  manage- 
ments. If  no  new  party  is  formed,  lack  of 
organization  and  direction  will  leave  the  Pro- 
gressives scattered,  confused,  and  far  less  ef- 
fective than  their  numbers  entitle  them  to  be. 
If  a  new  party  is  formed  on  the  traditional 


"LEADERSHIP  PARTIES"  145 

plan,  the  Progressives  will  promptly  join  it,  but 
so  will  many  others  who  are  not  true  Progres- 
sives at  all. 

As  soon  as  it  becomes  completely  organized, 
the  contamination  starting  among  the  rank 
and  file  will  work  upward,  and  if  the  prizes 
of  power  be  sufficiently  attractive  to  corrupt 
non-Progressive  privilege-seekers,  such  men 
will  work  their  way  into  control.  The  original 
leaders  around  whom  the  party  rallied  will  be 
displaced  by  more  conservative  and  "  practical " 
men  and  in  four  years  or  less  the  Progressive 
party  will  have  no  principles  on  which  all  its 
members  agree,  the  party  vote  will  no  longer 
represent  a  solid  unit  of  opinion,  and  the  real 
Progressives  will  be  dismayed  to  see  their 
name  used  as  a  mask  for  all  sorts  of  movements 
which  they  do  not  approve  of. 

In  trying  to  protect  present-day  parties 
against  such  invasions,  the  idealists  face  most 
unequal  odds.  They  fight,  unremunerated  and 
thanklessly,  for  principle.  They  work  as  vol- 
unteers, and  the  work  they  do  at  caucuses  and 
primaries  and  in  "arousing  the  people"  to  the 
dangers,  is  at  the  expense  of  their  efficiency  in 
private  work.  It  means  sacrifice  of  self,  family 
interests,  pleasures,  money,  and  commercial 


146       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

or  professional  progress.  Accordingly  their 
work  must  be  limited  in  amount  and  sporadic. 
It  cannot  be  incessant  and  thorough. 

Against  them  are  the  self-seekers,  to  whom 
a  principle  seems  wholly  academic  and  ama- 
teurish. To  them  success  means  a  livelihood 
and  a  career,  whereas  to  the  volunteers  suc- 
cess is  at  the  cost  of  livelihood  and  career.  To 
the  professional,  intrigue,  circumvention  of 
ideals,  and  petty  political  details  are  a  normal 
part  of  the  day's  work.  The  man  with  the 
fewest  ideals  has  the  fewest  handicaps  in  the 
peanut  politics  incident  to  factional  strife. 

If  the  Progressives  form  a  party  of  the  old 
type  therefore,  this  party  will  not  long  remain 
true  to  its  ideals  and  the  Progressives  will 
soon  be  again  without  a  rallying-point.  Just 
as  hi  New  York  State  now  certain  Republican 
district  conventions  declare  against  the  pro- 
posed Direct  Nominations'  law,  while  in  ad- 
joining districts  other  Republican  conventions 
are  favoring  the  measure,  so  the  Progressive 
party  would  soon  be  a  principle-dodging  or  di- 
vided machine  plus  a  miscellaneous  enrollment, 
instead  of  a  great  union  of  believers  in  certain 
principles. 

The  Progressives  are  in  fact  simply  the  fol- 


"LEADERSHIP  PARTIES"  147 

lowers  of  certain  conspicuous,  well-known,  and 
well-beloved  leaders.  Why  not  recognize  the 
fact  frankly  and  build  on  it? 

Suppose  a  group  of  these  leaders  who  have 
perfect  mutual  confidence  form  themselves 
into  "The  Progressive  Committee."  They 
agree  that  their  membership  in  that  commit- 
tee shall  be  unassailable.  They  fill  by  appoint- 
ment all  vacancies  in  their  own  number  that 
may  occur  by  death  or  resignation.  When  con- 
gressional elections  approach  they  meet  and 
draw  up  the  Progressive  platform  of  the  year, 
detailing  those  legislative  proposals  which 
they  believe  should  be  enacted  by  the  next 
Congress.  When  this  platform  is  published,  the 
desire  to  win  the  support  of  Progressive  voters 
will  lead  some  candidates  publicly  to  endorse 
the  platform.  Sometimes  these  candidates 
will  be  sincere,  sometimes  not.  In  some  dis- 
tricts all  candidates  will  endorse  the  platform; 
in  other  districts  all  the  candidates  will  dodge 
it  or  oppose  it.  The  Progressive  Committee, 
after  due  examination  of  conditions  and  can- 
didates in  the  various  districts,  issues  its  en- 
dorsement to  one  man  in  each  (calling  a  new 
candidate  into  the  field  if  necessary),  saying 
to  the  people,  "This  man  in  your  district  has 


148       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

subscribed  to  the  Progressive  platform;  we 
believe  him  sincere  and  capable;  we  hope  you 
will  elect  him." 

If  the  Progressive  Committee  did  truly 
enjoy  the  confidence  of  the  Progressive  voters, 
this  hoisting  of  the  colors  would  rally  the  party 
effectively  year  after  year. 

True  Progressives  would  be  glad  to  find  in 
the  field  a  candidate  who  represented  them  ac- 
curately, and  would  have  no  reason  to  worry 
about  the  procedure  that  brought  him  there. 
Anti-Progressives,  on  the  other  hand,  would 
be  helpless  to  pervert  the  Progressive  party, 
for  the  Progressive  Committee  is  self-chosen 
and  there  is  no  way  of  attacking  it  except  in 
front.  To  their  hypocritical  protests  against 
exclusion  from  a  share  in  the  control,  the  Com- 
mittee serenely  says:  "Take  your  complaint 
to  the  people !  Form  a  rival  party  on  any  lines 
you  like,  and  attract  followers  to  your  flag 
if  you  can."  There  could  be  no  objection  to 
having  each  substantial  division  of  opinion 
among  the  people  led  by  its  self-appointed 
committee. 

The  followers  of  these  leaders  do  not  choose 
the  leaders  by  intra-party  elections,  or  formally 
determine  where  the  party  shall  march,  yet 


"LEADERSHIP  PARTIES"  149 

despite  the  absence  of  connecting  machinery 
they  are,  by  the  act  of  following,  choosing 
leaders  and  controlling  the  platform.  Without 
support  the  leaders  are  nothing,  and  so  the 
leaders  must  cater  to  the  voters  to  the  utmost. 
In  the  old-style  party,  the  leaders  can  often 
put  through  a  nomination  that  is  distasteful 
to  the  party  membership,  yet  make  the  prestige 
of  the  party  support  it.  But  the  committee 
in  the  new-style  party  has  only  the  power  to 
invite  support.  It  holds  no  proxies.  It  simply 
says  "come  with  us,"  and  it  can  accomplish 
nothing  unless  the  people  come. 

An  old-style  party  is  like  a  shop  conducted 
on  the  cooperative  monopoly  plan,  with  the 
consumers  trying  to  decide  by  vote  what  goods 
shall  be  carried.  The  consumers  do  not  lose 
control  of  the  question  if  they  change  to  the 
competitive  plan  and  let  private  shop-keepers 
run  shops  at  their  own  risk,  for  the  shop-keeper 
must  carry  the  goods  the  consumers  want  him 
to  carry,  or  fail.  So  in  the  new-style  party  the 
one  essential  to  the  success  of  the  leaders  is 
that  they  shall  give  the  people  what  they  want, 
and  the  control  which  the  people  thereby  exer- 
cise over  the  party  management  is  actually  more 
effective  than  before,  despite  its  intangibility. 


150       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

We  are  not  so  very  far  from  this  even  now. 
In  many  cities  there  are  already  nominating 
bodies,  such  as  the  rebuilt  Citizens'  Union  in 
New  York  City,  which  are  practically  closed 
against  invasion.  The  plan  is  the  result  of  ex- 
perience wherein  the  impossibility  of  maintain- 
ing pure  reform  parties  has  been  amply  demon- 
strated. The  direct  primaries  have  opened 
up  new  political  fields,  where  the  absence  of 
party  labels  from  the  ballot,  has  cleared  the 
way  for  free  leadership.  In  these  primary  fights 
real  politics  has  appeared,  in  favorable  con- 
trast to  the  artificial,  formal  trumpery  of  so 
many  final  elections;  and  men  have  been  chosen 
by  the  voters  because  they  were  "New  Idea 
Republicans,"  or  "La  Follette  men,"  or  "Anti- 
Railroad,"  or  "Local  option"  advocates.  The 
people  have  not  resented  attempts  at  leader- 
ship, but  have  welcomed  them  and  even  cried 
out  for  them;  and  when  they  found  a  public 
man  in  whom  they  trusted  they  have  forced 
him  to  speak  and  guide  them  when  perhaps 
he  would  rather  have  kept  silent. 

Often  the  followers  of  a  certain  informal  group 
of  leaders,  seeking  to  advance  a  certain  idea, 
fight  for  their  candidates  in  the  primaries  of 
both  parties.  The  development  of  the  primary 


"LEADERSHIP  PARTIES"  151 

as  a  battle-ground  will  make  the  meaningless 
party  divisions  seem  more  meaningless  than 
ever,  and  the  next  logical  step  will  be  the  non- 
partisan  primary  and  the  non-partisan  final 
election  ballot,  wiping  out  the  strategic  ad- 
vantage which  the  machines  now  possess.  The 
attitude  of  voters  toward  the  "regular"  nomi- 
nees in  the  primary  fights  when  they  lack  the 
sanctity  of  the  party  label  is  much  more  freely 
critical.  The  typical  politician  is  usually  more 
effective  as  a  manipulator  of  machinery  than 
as  a  leader  of  the  people. 

Slightly  different  in  method,  but  identical 
in  their  function  of  leadership,  are  the  civic 
organizations,  which  are  so  governed  that  con- 
tamination can  be  resisted  by  excluding  unwel- 
come applicants  for  membership,  as  a  social 
club  does.  These  organizations,  working  for  a 
principle,  win  outside  support  among  the  voters 
and  their  endorsement  becomes  valuable  to  can- 
didates. It  is  only  one  step  further  for  these  or- 
ganizations to  foster  satisfactory  nominations, 
or  even  to  nominate  officially  in  their  own  name. 

The  idea  of  parties  controlled  from  above 
instead  of  from  below  is  thus  not  so  new  as  it 
probably  looked  when  first  outlined  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  discussion. 


152        SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

In  England  the  plan  has  been  in  use.  In 
each  of  the  parties  a  central  self-established 
committee  selects  the  candidates  for  each  dis- 
trict (in  England  candidates  need  not  be  resi- 
dents of  their  districts)  and  sends  them  out  to 
campaign  for  the  votes.  The  convenience  and 
simplicity  of  the  procedure  from  the  stand- 
point of  both  the  voters  and  the  leaders  is  in 
its  favor,  and  as  we  become  more  familiar  with 
free-for-all  direct-primary  fights  on  a  great 
scale,  I  think  this  "leadership"  type  of  party 
will  become  increasingly  common. 

It  is  a  rather  essential  feature  of  this  plan 
that  the  parties  shall  be  as  free  as  possible 
to  form  and  dissolve  in  the  most  informal 
fashion.  They  need  not  be,  and  apparently 
had  better  not  be,  recognized  in  law,  or  regu- 
lated except  as  to  their  expenditures.  A  can- 
didate who  makes  so  little  impression  on  the 
popular  consciousness  that  the  voters  need  a 
label  to  identify  him  on  the  ballot,  ought  not 
to  be  elected  at  all;  for  such  a  condition  im- 
plies an  invisibility  that  is  both  dangerous  and 
undemocratic.  The  ballots  in  other  countries 
never  carry  any  party  labels.  One  of  the  best 
features  of  short  ballots  will  undoubtedly  be 
the  fact  that  they  can  be  non-partisan  without 


"LEADERSHIP  PARTIES"  153 

inconveniencing  either  voters  or  candidates, 
thus  clearing  away  the  old  political  "trust," 
permitting  free  competition,  simplifying  the 
difficulties  of  new  parties  which  are  now  stifled 
at  birth  by  the  complexity  of  the  work,  and 
making  leadership  in  all  forms  more  hopeful 
and  practicable. 


CHAPTER  XI 

NOMINATION   PROCEDURE 

BY  an  enormous  mass  of  statutory  law, 
American  states  have  been  attempting 
to  introduce  fair  play  into  the  myriad  factional 
battles  incident  to  the  operation  of  political 
parties  as  at  present  organized.  It  was  thought 
that  if  orderliness  were  introduced,  the  aver- 
age American  would  find  political  details  less 
repulsive  and  would  take  hold  and  see  to  it 
that  the  party  nominees  were  more  satisfac- 
tory. To  a  certain  extent  the  hope  has  been 
justified  by  results.  But  sometimes  this  pro- 
cedure only  opened  the  doors  wider  to  the  easy 
entrance  of  corrupt  men,  and  made  swifter 
the  contamination  of  whichever  party  acquired 
dominance.  The  new  procedure  could  not  make 
uninteresting  things  interesting.  That  the 
method  of  nominating  the  coroner  was  fair 
to  all  was  not  enough  to  make  the  big  busy 
public  take  an  interest  in  it,  and  so  the  remain- 
ing few  who  were  interested  continued  to  find 
small  difficulty  in  having  their  own  way.  The 


NOMINATION  PROCEDURE         155 

whole  attempt  to  enable  the  people  to  protect 
the  precious  party  label  from  capture  was  a  very 
incomplete  success,  because  the  people  failed 
to  play  their  part  according  to  the  beautiful 
theory.  A  wiser  reform  would  have  been  to 
make  the  party  label  less  worth  capturing,  by 
shortening  the  final  election  ballot  until  the 
voters  looked  for  the  candidate  instead  of  his 
label. 

To  plough  a  little  deeper  into  the  subject  — 
the  problem  may  be  quartered  according  to  the 
nature  of  the  office,  as  follows:  — 

Nominations  of  — 

1.  Invisible  officers  from  unwieldy  districts; 

2.  Invisible  officers  from  wieldy  districts; 

3.  Visible  officers  from  unwieldy  districts; 

4.  Visible  officers  from  wieldy  districts. 

In  the  first  two  classes,  the  fact  that  the 
officers  are  shut  off  from  public  view  (by  their 
insignificance  or  undebatableness  of  character, 
or  by  the  confusion  of  many  simultaneous  con- 
tests) means  that  the  public  will  have  no  opin- 
ion to  express,  and  nothing  is  gained  by  the 
provision  of  better  procedure  for  the  expres- 
sion of  this  non-existent  opinion. 

In  the  third  class,  direct  primaries  may  be  of 
great  value;  but  they  are  really,  in  this  case, 


156       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

simply  weeding-out  elections  wherein  the 
people  are  arbitrarily  divided  into  two  parts 
called  respectively  "Republican"  and  "Demo- 
cratic." To  have  a  non-partisan  ballot,  with 
all  nominations  made  by  petition,  and  allow 
the  two  leading  candidates  to  appear  on  the 
ballot  in  the  final  election,  would  be  merely 
a  change  of  form,  not  of  principle.  Much  evi- 
dence of  the  danger  incident  to  unwieldy 
districts  is  developed  in  direct  primary  con- 
tests for  governor;  and  candidates  complain 
bitterly  of  the  difficulty  and  expense  of  con- 
ducting an  adequate  state-wide  canvass  with- 
out the  help  of  experienced  ready-made  vote- 
getting  machines. 

The  fourth  class  illustrates  how  respect  for 
our  first  two  Limitations  of  Democracy  clears 
away  difficulties.  For  any  procedure  will  suf- 
fice that  will  get  the  candidates'  names  on  the 
official  ballot,  subject  to  such  reasonable 
restriction  as  will  exclude  cranks  and  other 
candidates  who  have  no  real  following.  The 
ballot  can  be  non-partisan,  for  if  the  office  is 
visible  the  voter  will  not  beg  for  a  label  to 
guide  him.  This  dispenses  with  primaries 
and  the  state  regulation  of  parties  altogether, 
although  a  double  election  or  a  preferential  bal- 


NOMINATION  PROCEDURE         157 

lot  may  be  necessary,  to  prevent  scattering 
of  votes,  with  the  corollary  of  a  possible  minor- 
ity victory. 

In  this  land  of  the  free  it  does  not  seem 
likely  that  we  can  agree  to  print  on  the  official 
ballot  the  name  of  every  eligible  citizen  who 
asks  to  have  it  done,  although  that  is  the 
custom  in  parts  of  Canada. 

Nomination  by  petition  is  a  familiar  ex- 
pedient. The  requirements  vary  from  a  mere 
formal  handful  of  signatures  to  staggering 
thousands.  In  Des  Moines,  at  the  first  election 
under  the  commission  plan,  where  only  twenty- 
five  signatures  were  required  to  secure  a  place 
on  the  primary-election  ballot,  the  number  of 
candidates  was  seventy.  The  number  will 
decline  when  the  novelty  of  this  nomination 
procedure  wears  off;  but  it  would  seem  clear 
nevertheless  that  the  requirements  might  well 
be  increased. 

In  Boston,  which  had  its  first  non-partisan 
election  in  1910,  five  thousand  signatures  were 
required,  and  no  voter  was  allowed  to  sign  more 
than  one  petition.  This  prompted  many  voters 
to  refuse  to  sign  any  of  the  petitions  that  hap- 
pened to  be  offered  to  them.  The  newspapers 
pointed  out'  that  there  was  a  limit  to  the  num- 


158        SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

her  of  candidates  who  would  be  able  to  get 
five  thousand  signatures  in  Boston  without 
overlapping.  Voters  who  were  fearful  lest 
some  favorite  of  theirs  would  need  their  signa- 
ture were  therefore  chary  of  signing  for  any 
one  else  and  ended  by  signing  for  no  one.  As  a 
result  of  these  handicaps  there  were  finally 
only  four  candidates  on  the  ballot  for  mayor, 
although  several  times  as  many  men  undertook 
to  qualify.  The  cost  constituted  the  real  bar- 
rier. Two  of  the  candidates  received  fewer 
votes  than  the  number  of  names  on  their 
petitions. 

It  is  to  be  questioned  if  nomination  by  peti- 
tion can  stand  the  strain  of  regular  use.  It 
was  reported  in  1910  that  in  Los  Angeles  some 
one  opened  an  office  and  conducted  a  business 
in  the  preparation  of  petitions  for  candidates 
and  referenda  movements,  with  a  corps  of  ex- 
pert canvassers  to  go  forth  and  collect  sig- 
natures on  behalf  of  anybody  and  anything  at 
so  much  a  thousand.  There  is  nothing  unbe- 
lievable in  the  report,  and  its  plausibility  de- 
monstrates how  meaningless  petitions  may  be. 
President  Roosevelt  once  remarked  to  a  visi- 
tor who  flourished  a  petition  in  support  of  his 
request:  "Petition?  Petitions  mean  nothing! 


NOMINATION  PROCEDURE         159 

I  could  get  up  a  petition  to  have  you  hanged!" 
Another  illustration  is  the  success  of  the  In- 
dependence League  in  getting  thousands  of 
signers  for  the  petitions  that  put  the  names 
of  Hearst's  candidates  on  the  official  ballots 
of  certain  western  counties  in  which  the  party 
received  not  a  single  vote  in  the  subsequent 
election. 

As  a  demonstration  that  a  candidate  has  a 
following  and  is  entitled  to  a  place  on  the  bal- 
lot for  the  convenience  of  his  followers,  the  pe- 
tition is  a  failure. 

The  petition  then  must  be  reckoned  as 
simply  an  arbitrary  barrier,  compounded  of 
useless  labor,  expense  and  delay,  and  risk  of 
legal  error,  the  surmounting  of  which  indicates 
persistence  in  the  candidate.  Any  barrier  which 
will  keep  out  silly  candidatures  would  suffice 
and  would  save  a  lot  of  fruitless  expendi- 
ture. 

In  parts  of  Canada  and  in  New  Zealand 
the  candidate  must  make  a  deposit  of  money, 
fifty  to  two  hundred  dollars,  as  an  earnest  of 
his  serious  intentions,  and  if  he  fails  to  get  a 
decent  proportion  of  the  votes  on  election  day 
the  city  keeps  the  money  as  payment  for  hav- 
ing been  bothered  by  him. 


160       SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

The  forfeit  should  be  as  large  as  experience 
may  show  is  necessary  to  exclude  cranks,  and 
no  larger.  The  requirements  will  not  embar- 
rass the  candidate  of  small  means,  for  it  need 
not  be  required  of  him  until  just  long  enough 
before  the  election  to  allow  the  ballot-printer 
to  do  his  work.  By  that  time  the  campaign 
will  be  almost  closed,  and  the  candidate  will 
know  beyond  a  doubt  whether  he  is  a  factor 
in  the  contest.  If  he  is  afraid  that  he  will  not 
get  the  required  ten  or  twenty  per  cent  of  the 
votes,  the  peril  of  forfeit  will  be  an  induce- 
ment to  drop  out.  This  will  be  a  good  thing 
for  everybody,  especially  the  voters,  whose 
votes  are  less  likely  to  be  wasted  on  forlorn 
hopes.  If  he  cannot  satisfy  some  money-lender 
that  he  will  get  the  required  minimum  of  votes, 
he  will  certainly  be  unable  to  get  a  plurality. 
If  he  has  real  hopes  of  victory  he  will  have  no 
serious  difficulty  in  borrowing  the  necessary 
cash  for  a  few  days,  and  the  use  of  it  even  at 
usurious  interest  will  involve  far  less  expen- 
diture than  the  getting  up  of  a  big  "  Notary- 
Publicked"  petition. 

Under  these  circumstances  the  real  formal- 
ity of  nomination  would  occur  when  the  candi- 
date began  to  tell  the  neighbors  of  his  ambi- 


NOMINATION  PROCEDURE         161 

tions  —  a  prettier  way  of  beginning  than  the 
present  way  of  button-holing  bosslets  and  ex- 
changing caucus  strength  with  candidates  for 
other  offices. 


CHAPTER  XH 

CONCLUSION 

AND  now,  my  dear  reader,  we  have  our 
practical  form  of  democracy  all  com- 
plete! By  means  of  disregarding  all  detail  and 
handling  the  elements  of  democracy  as  if  they 
were  all  primitively  simple  and  free  from 
myriad  ramifications,  our  imaginary  recon- 
struction has  all  the  fascination  of  the  panacea. 
To  the  reader  who  thinks  the  plan  really  com- 
plete, I  offer  a  restraining  hand.  This  little 
book  is  only  a  sort  of  compass.  It  points  to 
the  north,  but  it  may  lead  a  too  devout  be- 
liever, not  to  the  magnetic  pole  of  truth,  but 
plumb  up  against  the  wall  of  the  house  next 
door.  It  points  north,  but  the  proper  route 
is  devious  and  much  exploration  will  be  needed 
to  find  it. 

To  the  reader  who  is  sure  that  at  some  point 
familiar  to  him  the  proper  route  lies  athwart 
my  compass  needle,  I  say:  "Perhaps,  and  for 
a  little  while;  but  I  have  confidence  that  you 
will  find  yourself  winding  presently  north 


CONCLUSION  163 

again,  that  permanent  progress  will  be  meas- 
ured along  the  compass  line,  and  that  when  you 
do  find  it  advantageous  to  go  to  the  right  or 
left,  it  is  because  that  leads  to  a  better  north- 
ward road." 

I  anticipate  the  criticism  that  my  book  is 
but  scantily  supplied  with  evidence,  and  I 
hasten  to  say  that  I  know  it.  The  trouble  with 
a  fact  is  that  it  is  never  found  pure,  but  is  al- 
ways alloyed,  and  if  I  essayed  to  stop  and  note 
all  exceptions,  anticipate  all  misunderstand- 
ings, and  measure  all  qualifications,  this  would 
be  a  ten-volume  treatise  and  you  would  never 
read  it.  I  am  not  trying  to  compile  the  evi- 
dence. If  I  have  made  you  see  reasonableness 
in  these  doctrines,  I  shall  be  satisfied.  I  have 
simply  sketched  the  idea  on  the  back  of  an  old 
envelope,  and  the  working  plans  must  be  drawn 
by  abler  architects  with  better  equipment.  I 
hope  some  day  to  see  the  book  written  in 
which  these  crude  outlines  of  mine  will  be 
straightened,  measured,  and  supplied  with  the 
needed  details. 

My  experience  with  politicians  in  sundry  little 
tilts  I  have  had  with  them  leads  me  to  believe 
that  to  them  this  book,  like  any  other  discus- 


164        SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

sion  that  takes  a  bird's-eye  view  of  their  pro- 
fession, will  be  incomprehensible.  I  can  make 
far  easier  headway  with  the  man  who  is  not 
so  near  the  forest  that  the  trees  obscure  his 
vision.  I  have  found  the  politicians  utterly 
unaware  that  there  are  any  fundamentals  un- 
derlying their  existence. 

Let  me  tell  you,  Mr.  Politician,  who  you 
are,  and  what  you  are,  and  why !  It  will  serve 
to  the  listening  reader  as  a  summing  up  of 
this  volume. 

You,  Mr.  Politician,  are  a  unique  American 
phenomenon !  In  any  other  democratic  country 
you  would  find  yourself  with  nothing  to  do. 
You  would  find  that  in  other  lands  politics 
corresponds  to  the  word  "civics"  in  this  coun- 
try, that  it  concerns  policies  rather  than  politi- 
cal machinery,  and  is  respectable  instead  of 
despised. 

But  in  this  country  you  are  necessary.  The 
designers  of  our  governmental  institutions, 
sitting  in  constitutional  conventions  and  char- 
ter commissions,  provided  certain  work  for 
the  people  to  do  —  and  the  people  did  n't  do 
it.  It  was  arranged  that  coroners  should  be 
selected  by  the  people,  but  the  people  went 
home  to  bed  and  left  the  rival  candidates 


CONCLUSION  165 

talking  to  a  lingering  handful  of  faithful  citi- 
zens —  and  you,  Mr.  Politician,  were  one  of 
the  lingerers.  The  designers  left  it  to  the  people 
of  the  state  to  get  together  and  hire  a  man 
for  governor,  but,  although  there  were  plainly 
too  many  voters  to  work  in  unison,  except  by 
delegation  of  power  to  representatives,  they 
provided  no  such  method  and  left  that  work 
to  volunteers  —  and  you  were  of  the  volun- 
teers. 

In  looking  after  the  neglected  work  of  the 
people,  and  in  maintaining  the  machines  for 
handling  the  awkward  work,  you  performed 
needed  service  and  deserved  pay  from  the  state. 
But  instead  of  giving  you  definite  title  and 
salary,  we  made  you  scratch  for  a  living  in 
petty  underpaid  offices  in  the  government, 
bouncing  you  from  office  with  each  changing 
administration  without  justice  or  ceremony; 
so  your  career  was  uncertain  and  precarious. 
Your  profession,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that 
your  master,  the  people,  could  not  see  or  judge 
your  work  intelligently,  was  one  that  offered 
small  reward  to  honest  men  (except  in  the  few 
rare  conspicuous  offices)  and  big  reward  with- 
out danger  to  dishonest  ones.  You  shared 
with  other  politicians  power  without  respon- 


166        SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

sibility.  You  fought  the  other  less  faithful 
guardians  of  the  treasure  to  protect  our  inter- 
ests, and  we  only  damned  you  indiscriminately 
as  their  fellow  conspirator.  The  damage  that 
you  permitted  was  as  nothing  to  the  damage 
you  prevented. 

By  electing  only  visible  officers  and  from 
wieldy  districts,  politics  can  be  simplified  so 
that  the  people,  the  candidates,  and  the  state 
will  perform  all  the  work  that  is  to  be  done, 
leaving  you  no  function.  There  can  be  no  poli- 
tical specialists  when  there  is  nothing  to  be  a 
political  specialist  in!  As  I  lay  you  in  your 
grave,  there  passes  from  our  American  life  a 
picturesque  and  original  character,  genial,  use- 
ful, un  thanked! 

Of  course,  this  is  only  a  theoretical  obituary ! 
And,  until  we  get  a  democracy  that  "democs," 
please,  Mr.  Politician,  please  stay  above  the 
sod,  maintaining  your  wobbly  oligarchy  to 
prevent  governmental  chaos  and  collapse ! 

That  the  people  have  left  the  government  to 
be  run  by  politicians  is  creditable  to  the  for- 
mer's good  sense.  Imagine  some  less  substantial 
electorate,  such  as  the  more  mercurial  popula- 
tion of  a  Latin  republic,  assailed  with  frenzied 


CONCLUSION  167 

appeals  to  leave  business  and  "go  into  poli- 
tics." They  might  do  it,  to  the  utter  demoraliza- 
tion of  industry  prior  to  each  election.  And  we 
should  say:  "How  deplorable!  What  a  bad 
sense  of  proportion  they  show  in  fussing  with 
caucuses  and  rallies  when  they  ought  to  be 
ploughing  the  fields  and  caring  for  their  fami- 
lies!" Of  the  enthusiastic  volunteer  we  should 
say:  "The  time  he  devotes  to  unpaid  work  in 
politics  could  better  be  used  in  paid  work  at 
his  business,  so  that  he  could  give  his  children 
a  better  schooling  or  his  wife  a  new  hat";  and 
we  should  be  right.  It  is  because  they  are 
doing  their  duty  that  the  American  people  do 
not  go  into  politics.  Duty  to  the  family  out- 
weighs duty  to  the  state. 

Yet  in  no  way  is  this  rightly  to  be  construed 
as  applause  for  civic  laziness.  It  is  not  a  justi- 
fication of  the  man  who  thinks  only  of  his  own 
affairs  and  ignores  those  of  the  community.  We 
are  getting  rather  away  from  such  narrow  self- 
ishness. We  talk  of  "conservation  of  national 
resources,"  "regulation  of  the  labor  of  women 
and  children,"  "the  prevention  of  tubercu- 
losis" -these  things  are  our  real  politics. 
The  citizen  does  have  duties  in  such  directions. 

But  "peanut  politics,"  that  unique  American 


168        SHORT-BALLOT  PRINCIPLES 

institution,  is  a  different  matter.  It  is  not  the 
people's  paramount  duty  to  fret  over  whether 
Jones  or  Smith  shall  be  made  a  delegate  to  a 
convention  to  nominate  a  candidate  for  a  petty 
aldermanic  post,  or  whether  the  Brown  faction 
or  the  Robinson  crowd  shall  control  the  pa- 
tronage of  the  county  clerk's  office.  "Taking 
an  interest  in  politics"  ought  to  mean  some- 
thing bigger  than  hanging  around  political 
headquarters,  or  learning  the  names  of  the 
county  committee,  or  getting  up  chowder- 
parties.  The  citizen  owes  no  duty  to  "peanut 
politics"  except  to  get  it  abolished  in  favor  of 
the  big  "common  welfare"  kind  of  politics  that 
lies  beyond. 

What  good  sense  the  American  people  have 
shown  in  silently  ignoring  "peanut  politics" 
and  refusing  to  believe  that  the  privilege  of 
electing  the  register  of  deeds  was  the  kind  of 
liberty  the  Pilgrim  fathers  crossed  the  sea  for ! 
A  people  who  stick  resolutely  to  their  firesides 
and  their  work,  —  yes,  to  money-making,  — 
and  stubbornly  wait  for  politics  to  come  to 
them,  are  showing  a  sober,  instinctive  common 
sense  that  is  sounder  than  the  logic  of  those 
who  scold  them. 

I  promised  in  the  first  chapter  to  land  you 


CONCLUSION  169 

here  free  of  cynicism  regarding  our  people  in 
politics,  and  possessed  of  a  belief  that,  with  like 
mechanisms  of  expression,  they  would  prove 
themselves  as  good  as  the  people  of  those 
foreign  democracies  where  good  government 
seems  normal. 

Have  I  succeeded  ? 


I/ENVOI 

WELL,  my  friend  reader,  what  shall  we 
do  about  it?  Shall  the  book  go  on  the 
shelf  and  be  classed  as  the  academic  proposal 
of  a  dreamer?  Or  is  it  to  be  a  flag  to  follow? 

I've  started  already. 

In  this  year,  1911,  certain  things  are  begin- 
ning that  you,  as  a  reader  of  this  little  volume, 
this  year  or  later,  should  know  of.  The  Short- 
Ballot  Organization  has  been  formed  to  ex- 
plain the  Short-Ballot  principle  to  the  Ameri- 
can people. 

The  President  is  WOODROW  WILSON,  of 
Princeton,  N.  J. 

The  Vice-Presidents  are :  — 

WINSTON  CHURCHILL,  Cornish,  N.  H. 

HORACE  E.  DEMING,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

BEN  B.  LINDSEY,  Denver,  Colo. 

WILLIAM  S.  U'REN,  Oregon  City,  Ore. 

WILLIAM  ALLEN  WHITE,  Emporia,  Kan. 

CLINTON  ROGERS  WOODRUFF,    Philadel- 
phia, Pa. 

The  Advisory  Board  are :  — 

LAWRENCE  F.  ABBOTT,  New  York,  N.  Y. 


L'ENVOI  171 

HENRY  JONES  FORD,  Princeton,  N.  J. 
RICHARD  S.  CHILDS,  New  York  City. 
NORMAN  HAPGOOD,  New  York  City. 
WOODROW  WILSON,  Princeton,  N.  J. 
The  author  is  Secretary,  with  offices  at  383 
Fourth  Avenue,  New  York. 

Provision  is  made  for  the  enrollment  in  our 
list  of  "Short-Ballot  Advocates"  of  any  one 
who  believes  in  the  Short-Ballot  principle.  No 
dues  or  duties.  Enrolled  advocates  —  there 
are  twelve  thousand  of  them  now — receive  oc- 
casional bulletins  of  opportunities  to  help,  and 
to  them  our  publications  are  free. 

We  have  been  organized  only  a  year  at  this 
writing,  but  we  have  seeded  the  country  with 
pamphlets  and  publicity  —  and  we  are  begin- 
ning to  reap  already. 

Are  you  with  us? 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S    .   A 


DATE  DUE 


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